I have no idea about the actual identity of this species — and I think these are buds rather than the mature plant — but tell me you don’t think the name is appropriate. Look at the one third from the right on the stalk, it even has an eye in the right place.
St Helena has been subjected to many invasive species since humanity first arrived here five centuries ago, some deliberately planted or otherwise introduced, some accidentally so. In the background, New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), which a while back someone decided would be a good cash crop, it being the basis of things like rope and mailbags. The cash for it stopped flowing fifty years ago, but that doesn’t mean it all decided to stop growing. In the foreground, well, you know what bird that is (Gallus gallus domesticus, according to the biologists): much the same thing happened, but as a chicken is for life and not just for Sunday dinner, when there stopped being much economic point in people looking after them, out into the environment they went. There are now large numbers of feral chickens on the island.
Ascension Island is, nominally, a dependency of St Helena and lies about 800 miles from it. Whereas there are many friends who think that when I come here (St Helena, that is) I am swanning away to some ‘desert island’, it’s not like that, as my photos make clear. But, as far as I can ascertain, Ascension really is such a place. The plan is that I will be going there in early April, all as part of the same research project that I’ve been working on since 2021.
But Ascension may well be the most bureaucratically impenetrable place I have ever tried to visit. It might be depicted on maps — this one hangs in a corner of Anne’s Place in Jamestown — but does it officially exist? In practice, can your average person actually set foot there? About these things, I am not yet convinced.
I spent the day entirely in my accommodation, marking. Something I could have done at home (whether on a Sunday or otherwise). The options for a photo were of the garden at the flat, or its view, so let’s try the latter. I have a decent view at home, too… but the day was what it was. Anyway this is High Knoll Fort, or one end of it anyway: a significant St Helena landmark, visible from most of one half of the island, which is, of course, why they built it there.
St Helena sits in such a vast expanse of uninterrupted ocean that sea conditions can often have no direct relationship to what the weather is like locally. The atmosphere was calm today, a beautiful day of weather (in fact, all of them have been, since I came here, except for one bout of mild drizzle last Wednesday afternoon). But the sea…. that was a different story.
“Rollers” are the local name for waves driven by storms way to the north, like off Canada, or Florida, and which just roll down the ocean for thousands of miles until hitting this small lump of rock that happens to be in the way. On one day in February 1846 (see this page) the rollers were so intense that they took out half of Jamestown and about thirty moored vessels. They weren’t quite that bad this afternoon but still, it’s noticeable no one was parking their cars on the wharf.
Another bird, yes, but I’ve been trying to get a decent shot of a red fody, a.k.a. common fody (Foudia madagascariensis) since my first visit here. He — and this is definitely a male — really is that red: I’ve not tweaked the colour settings at all on this one. As the species’ Latin name suggests, they are originally from Madagascar, but have made it over to the other side of Africa by one means or another down the centuries.
I’ve been here before — not just in life, but on the blog, with this picture, taken on my first trip to St Helena. That one is also in black-and-white, and today that aesthetic move relieves some of the more garish colouring, particularly of the Hawaiian shirt of the guy on the left. Who, by the way, keeps saying hello to me as if he’s never met me before, whereas in the past we’ve had numerous conversations. But perhaps I am just forgettable, in a way that he is not.
Lucky is the guy who really runs the place where I’m staying. “He doesn’t like strangers”, I’ve been told. This seems to be true. Steadfastly, he continues to show his disdain for me. Even rubbing up against car exhaust pipes seems to be preferable. I feel suitably rejected.
Whatever the wind farm on Deadwood Plain is doing to help St Helena generate power in a sustainable way, this particular turbine ain’t contributing. The cows seem stoic about the situation, though, as cows so often do. I passed on my way up Flagstaff Peak behind, at 2,257 feet above sea level. A century and a quarter ago, this place would have been crowded with tents and huts — it was a prison camp for those captured in the Boer War (fought so the British state could get its hands on gold and diamonds, before anyone tells you it had worthier motives).
Mynah birds are everywhere on St Helena, and considered something of a pest by the locals, though I have to say I quite like them, they are handsome creatures I think. Two of them were the subject of the photo taken on my first full day here, in quarantine, back in November 2021 and it’s time one made a reappearance. This is the 60th shot taken on the island, and considered as a country, it thus draws level with Russia on the stats, ready to overtake it tomorrow and become the 5th most depicted one on here (after England, Australia, Scotland and Norway). And I doubt I’ll be going back to Russia any time soon — but there is more to be seen of St Helena yet.
Being 42 