The day before Christmas a book arrived mysteriously in my letter box – no donor name and no memory of having ordered it for myself. Before I began reading it, I crowd-sourced a search for the giver, and discovered her, currently taking possession of Amsterdam, the friend whose book-gifts have opened worlds to me over the years.
This book is “On Track”, an account of John Blay's attempts to find the old Aboriginal route from the high country near Mt Kosciuszko to Eden on the coast, the link between feasting on bogong moths and feasting on whales. The country he traverses is wild, rugged and remote, and very close to where I live.
Early every summer, when the children were small, we used to be visited by stray bogongs, who congregated on the inhospitable glass of the French windows, banging against them, large and furry. I knew then that the moths were heading for the high country and that they were eaten by the ancestors.
But I didn't know the technicalities of gathering and cooking till Blay enlightened me.
The moths congregate in vast numbers in caves in the high country. They cling, massed, to the walls. Blay touched one and thousands peeled off and formed a squirming crush on the floor. Blay comments “It's a demonstration of how readily they might be harvested.” (p. 24)
How they became a feast has always puzzled me (although not enough to check it out). Blay solves the puzzle for me. You cook them, winnow out dust and wings, and pound them into fatty cakes which last a few days, longer if they're smoked. (p. 26)
Then of course I consulted Mr Google and found plenty more details.
They have a wingspan of about 50mm, dark brown mottles and two light spots on each wing, and fly up to 1500 kilometres in their year-long life. Bogong moth expert Ken Green says they are the second biggest energy input into the mountains, after sunlight.
Larva develop in ground now poisoned by low levels of arsenic which is stored in the body of the adult, and then leaches into local soil when they die. Because they die in large numbers, 1.5 metres thick on the floor of some Alpine caves, representing many generations, the arsenic becomes concentrated and a potential threat to anything that eats them – antechinus, spiders, lizards and Mountain Pygmy Possums.
Deceived by artificial lights into thinking it's sun-up and time to rest, they can disrupt air-conditioning, cover lighting for sporting fields, and become a nuisance at barbecues. They smother buildings with a dark coating of moth, infiltrate Parliament House in Canberra and one even perched on Yvonne Kenny's nose at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.
Sources
http://australianmuseum.net.au/bogong-moth#sthash.4ZsJY83y.dpuf
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2002/11/14/2583232.htm
Paula said:
What a joy to receive a gift like that! Did you take these photos, Meg?
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morselsandscraps said:
No I didn’t, and to my shame I failed to acknowledge sources. The pair are from the second sources article: the mass is from http://www.cureallpest.com.au/annual-migration-bogong-moths/
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Paula said:
Thank you, Meg. π
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Heyjude said:
What a lovely surprise. I always love receiving a book, even though I have far too many and keep giving them away to charity shops. I shan’t be eating any of those moths though…
An aside: as Yvette mentioned your link is still to the old site. If you click on your avatar on the bar above your blog site (right hand side) you can change your account settings and make this blog your primary site and change the URL address, so when anyone clicks on your lovely face they are taken to the correct site.
Jude xx
Keep dry!
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morselsandscraps said:
Flood watching is great fun when there’s no danger – we were out for four hours this morning watching water rise.
Thanks for the how-to advice. Do you mind checking and making sure I’ve got it right? You’re my techno-guru!
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Heyjude said:
Seems to work fine now π
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morselsandscraps said:
Thank you. This is about the fourth time you’ve educated me. I’m grateful.
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Heyjude said:
Ah, but Meg, you educate me in so many other ways! Have fun with your family π
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Sue said:
I tried to leave a comment yesterday, which failed….a most interesting post, all following from a mystery present, how good is that?
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prior2001 said:
Wow – learned so much – your photos show their beauty and too bad about the arsenic – so sad –
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morselsandscraps said:
Thank you for following me on snippets and snaps. I need to let you know it replaces morselsandscraps which you’ve also followed and on which there’ll be no more postings.
I learned a lot too, but I need to confess that I stole the photos.
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prior2001 said:
Well thx for letting me know but I unfollowed after I pressed follow – and actually I think I did the same thing when I followed you with my other blog – and it is because u have your gravatar still linked to your no. Active blog – and even tho it says right there u have moved in – both times I clicked follow too soon – lol
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morselsandscraps said:
Thanks so much for persisting. I’ll sort it with Jude’s help.
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prior2001 said:
Xxoo πΊπΈπΊπΈ
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restlessjo said:
What a very wonderful friend to surprise gift you like that! π
Come on, meanie! Find some Winter shots for Jude π π
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morselsandscraps said:
Ganging up on me eh?? All shots worth posting have already been posted and I don’t like recycling posts, even for you and Jude.
I met this wonderful friend when her embroidery scissors were confiscated at the airport and I saw the exquisite piece she was working on. I just had to know her.
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restlessjo said:
Me neither, but I know what she means about Antipodeans with ruffled feathers π (just stirring it π )
Fabulous way to make a friend!
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morselsandscraps said:
I tell a good story! Up till then she was a mere colleague, one of forty.
As for ruffled feathers, I’m a woman, old, I live in a rural community, AND I live far away from the centre of civilisation. Why wouldn’t they be ruffled?
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Lucid Gypsy said:
Oh, you’ve added some! I like the extra photo, it looks like pretty little pieces of wood and it’s clear now that people eat them. I’ll keep the fatty cakes in mind in case I ever come across some π
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morselsandscraps said:
Did you see this when it was an oops post? Life has been galloping and schedule day caught up with me before I’d done any shaping and polishing. Today was a day of floodwaters and the kids riding their body boards down the Potato Point gutters and grassy hills. Blogging definitely takes second place to rivers breaking their banks, and potential fires put on hold again.
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