The colony of Muscovy ducks that used to live around the marina in Hebden Bridge, and peaked at about six individuals, seems to have disappeared — but members of the species have managed to find St Helena, in the middle of the ocean. Why does the one on the right not have the same facial bulges as the other? I suspect, just because it’s younger. They grow their faces over time. As do we humans, of course.
A few days to go on this trip to St Helena and work has definitely been keeping me busy. On the opposite side of the street I was sat there at just past clocking-off time, feeling very much like these guys. Yes, the butt bin to the right annoys me. But only slightly.
Jamestown isn’t usually the most rocking capital city on the planet — then again, neither was my last one, Windhoek, and Jamestown may well be the more lively of the two on a Saturday night. But not on a calm Monday evening. The lights climbing to the left are those of Jacob’s Ladder. Above, the moon.
One wonders if the social and economic landscape of St Helena would be different had it been run more often in its history by St Helenians. In the centuries since it was formally colonised, only two of the many Governors have been born on the island, and it’s perhaps significant that one of these, Hudson Janisch gets himself by far the most impressive memorial of any Governor. On the lowest level of this three-tier stone (not pictured) is inscribed: “This monument is erected by the inhabitants to commemorate the high respect and esteem in which their late Governor was universally held.” As a memorial, that’s pretty good, I think.
They did seem like they were quite keen on the idea of making more of themselves, but I moved on before they got down to anything. Apparently these are white-spotted fruit chafers (Mausoleopsis amabilis). Apparently the St Helena Research Institute (hi Becky) would like to know exactly where they were spotted: so I tag these as residing half-way up the slope between the lower Munden’s battery and the one at the top of the hill, just above Jamestown. Ecologically, they’re not supposed to be here, but that is, sadly, true of a great many species, both animal and vegetable, that are now found on St Helena.
Well, I am here to do some work, at least. In fact it’s been a busy week, and one I was relieved to get to the end of: maybe Friday afternoon isn’t the best time to ask others to do some work on my behalf, but we got through it. Colleague (and former student) Gareth sits in the background and makes his third appearance on the blog.
With the only relatively easy road out of Jamestown temporarily closed due to being covered in stones after Wednesday’s storm, there is a need to find alternatives. You’d think that being used in a very challenging transportation environment would have imposed a kind of evolutionary process on the local vehicles, a sort of natural selection if you like. But if it has, this truck hasn’t benefited: that’s not dust it’s raising. And look at the bend that is about to come.
Depending on how I count the days in transit, today could be reckoned the 50th day I have spent on St Helena across my three trips — and it was, certainly, the one with the worst weather. Jamestown, on average, gets 9-10mm of rain in the month of May, yet at least that amount fell today. It started overnight, and this morning there was already a dirty brown stream running down Main Street and debouching into the sea. It carried on, too, heavy showers every few minutes all day, really quite foul weather. And at points up in the hills, correspondents reckon there might have been some 100mm (4 inches) of rain through the day. Not normal…
I took the morning off and came up to Plantation House, the residence of the Governor of St Helena, to do the tour, and like the other 7 people doing it with me, we stoically let ourselves be shown vaguely interesting items of furniture and portraits of the British royal family for 90 minutes or so in order that we could then get through to the real reason we were all there; to have the honour of meeting Jonathan, who at around 192 is the world’s oldest living land animal whose age is (more or less) known. And he did not seem at all bothered by his weekly dose of humans — seeming as interested in us as we were in him. I think he’s a complete dude, and could not resist making him the day’s image even though he’s appeared before. But he totally deserves his relative fame, if you ask me.
This creature generally seems to keep watch over the entrance to the Standard pub in Jamestown — though not very attentively, at least at this point in time. I like the colour co-ordination in evidence on this shot. The palate is certainly consistent between cat, walls and steps.
Being 42 