In our childhood we became familiar with a calendar of four seasons – summer, autumn, winter and spring. How strange it seems now to expect anything that resembles what we accepted as a “fundamental understanding” when we were young. The traditional calendar that we grew up with “migrated” from the northern hemisphere and has long been regarded as irrelevant when measuring the rhythms of the Australian landscape. Indigenous people had a different approach. Depending on where you might be in our land the number of seasons varied and the transition from one season to the next was marked by natural events such as the appearance of certain birds, the flowering of different plant species and other natural phenomena. This page has been created to explore what our natural calendar might look like….in Newstead.
Think about the following:
* How many distinct seasons can you identify and what marks the shift from one season to the next?
* How has the timing of the seasons (when compared with our conventional calendar) changed over your lifetime? What have you noticed?
* Are there natural events; such as the appearance of certain bird species (eg Rainbow Bee-eaters) or the flowering of particular plants (eg Golden Wattle) you think might be significant?
Over time we will start to construct a seasonal calendar for the Newstead area. It will be incomplete and imperfect, but hopefully it will incite you to add your thoughts to understanding what makes our landscape “tick”. To view local seasonal observations click here.
There is a nice example at http://www.herringisland.org/seasons1.htm that describes a 7 season calendar for the Upper Yarra Valley ((Jones, D., Mackay, S. & Pisani, A. 1997 Patterns in the Valley of the Christmas Bush: a seasonal calendar for the upper Yarra Valley. Victorian Naturalist 114(5):246-249.) and a 6 season calendar for the Melbourne area compiled by Dr. Beth Gott of the School of Biological Sciences, Monash University.
Graphic by Damian Curtin and Stanley Barker