TheBanyanTree: Bats and Rupert Bunny

[Peter Macinnis]

Rupert Bunny first: he's a painter, or was-- he died in 1947, full of 
years and fame, the first Australian artist to hit the big time in Paris 
in the 1890s.  He is the subject of a massive exhibition at the Art 
Gallery of New South Wales, and we caught it today, not long before it 
closed.  You can get a taste for his work at 
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/current/bunny or go to the 
links at http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/bunny_rupert.html

Bunny was later a juror for the Salon in Paris, and I think the French 
government bought 11 of his works, rather a lot for a foreigner. any 
foreigner.  He knocked around with Sarah Bernhardt, Auguste Rodin, 
Debussy and other nobby types.  Not bad for a mere colonial, so it was 
an exhibition we needed to catch.

The AGNSW is one of three incursions which have been allowed in the 
original colonial Government Domain, half of which is now designated the 
RBG or Royal Botanic Gardens (or RBG to people like us who are botanists 
by training), the rest still being open parkland and referred to as "the 
Domain".  The other incursions are a swimming pool on the seashore at 
one point, and a road that cuts through it.

We travel to the city by ferry: we walk about 1.2 km (3/4 mile) downhill 
from home to the ferry in a comfortable 15 minutes.  There are buses, 
but why bother when our legs are still up to it?  We know the ferry 
timetables, and we leave enough time to get a coffee at the wharf.

For those who don't know me, Chris and I are "retired": we are active 
grandparents, and the rest of the time I work as a writer of books that 
relate mainly to science.  This means I can draw on superannuation, get 
cheap travel, and still claim most of my expenses as tax deductions.  We 
also get concessional entry to galleries and such.

Today is a case in point: I'm working on a natural history "how to" for 
younger readers, and I needed some flying bats, so this was a business 
trip.  The RBG has become home to a large colony of fruit bats, and I 
happen to know that they are restive on hot days, flapping their wings 
as they hang from trees, and every so often, getting disturbed and 
flying around.

It's hot today: mid-90s on the fairy height scale, mid 30s on the C (for 
civilised) scale.  So I set up in the shade on an alley-way that the 
bats seemed to be using, but the perverse beasts immediately switched to 
another route.  I was using telephoto, which meant using a tripod 
mounting and trying to catch them while they were briefly in the frame, 
so in the end, I took about 150 shots to get three acceptable ones.  I 
got lots of lovely shots of blue sky and cloud.

The AGNSW is air-conditioned, so we galleried, got gallery feet (as one 
does), had morning tea, and galleried again.  We headed out into the 
noonday heat and I got some more bat shots.

Then we headed downhill and ate in an outdoor section at the gardens, an 
area that has been fenced in to keep the birds out, then we hiked around 
the water-bird ponds where up to 120 species have been recorded--I only 
counted 18, but that's about average for an antique botanist.  We 
sweated past the Opera House, steamed past the thronging tourists, back 
onto a ferry and home.  Now we're waiting for the southerly change and 
the rain: there's thunder nearby.

We also found Chinese scrolls in a side room at the AGNSW and we want 
one like that, so that's on the list to hunt down, and Chris marked down 
some Margaret Preston botanical prints.

This retirement business can be quite wearing.

-- 

   _--|\    Peter Macinnis, Manly, the birthplace of Australian surfing
  /     \   feral word herder, also herbal remedies, bespoke fish
  \.--._*<--hooks, umbrellas mended and budgerigar requisites
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm