Some years ago we read a book titled "In the footsteps of Mr Kurtz" which was about African despots and referenced the main character from James Conrad's classic book "The Heart of Darkness". On 14 December we took a trip to the Frankston area, to which some folk attach similar metaphors, and later in the outing we followed in the steps of Sean Dooley, going to Seaford Swamp.
Our first stop however was at the McClelland Sculpture Park in a suburb called Langwarrin which appeared to be largely light industry. This is the third Sculpture park we have visited after Storm King up the Hudson from NYC and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the UK. This site was well up to the very high standard set by the other two. My initial aim with this post is to show my photos from the Park - I will add works' titles etc later (when I have relocated the map of the park). A little text accompanies a few snaps.
The next few photos are from an exhibition of the work of Brian Robinson from Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. He uses a wide range of techniques and is very skilful.
This is the top third of one work , featuring amongst other things a toy turtle in the centre and a toy crocodile in the upper left.
Back to the outside!
The title of this work was "La Stupenda (there is nothing like a Dame)" which I thought very amusing.
There was another work near this one which was a sound sculpture, with speakers delivering a very strange collection of random noises. I originally wondered if it was a Lyrebird!
The title of this one was something like "The King is Dead" and was very hard to work out if approaching from behind. The reference to the boss of the flock is clear from this position.
There are a lot of smaller works around which makes this Park easier to navigate than the others referenced in the preamble. I have chosen this one because of the dates of the artist. He was born in 1915 and died 2020. He did this work in 2015 - when he was aged 100!
I wrote down 18 species of birds here which isn't bad where I was concentrating more on the art. I had a small lens on so only got one photo, of a Noisy Miner.
The Edithvale - Seaford Swamp is managed by Melbourne Water (as is the Western Treatment Plant at Werribee). There is really only one way to view the birds on the open water South of Edithvale Rd which is from the bird hide. (I didn't realise what is North of the road until checking Google Maps for this post. Later!) The hide is a rather 'managed' operation and only open on weekends. But it is an excellent site, with loaner binoculars etc and giving great views of an open area. Apparently the reeds were blocking the view but have been reduced in front of the hide.
The
birds were pretty good and then rose to excellent when an Australasian Bittern flew past about 150m away. I didn't get a snap, but one of the volunteers agreed with my ID, and I was able to give enough details to satisfy eBird!
It is interesting that there are at least 2 eBird Hotspots very close together: one of them has no Bittern records since 2014 where as the other - which I had used - has infrequent, but regular, sightings of the species.
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