This rock belongs to us all

Dawn light filters through the matchstick blind as International Rock Flipping Day begins. Outside, a tui squawks and chuckles, probably from among the mass of yellow flowers on the big kowhai by the gate, and when Anne-Marie pulls up the blind on the east window the sky's the pale blue of a starling's egg—that slightly cold colour with the promise of warmth.

I get a cup of tea in bed, with toast and quince jam, and shortly afterwards she brings in a small leaf from some lawn weed. She holds it out for me to inspect. It's covered with dew.
"Not dew", she says.
I touch it. It's hard, like tiny crystals.
"Frost", she says. "Very light, but definitely a frost".

But by mid morning not a trace remains. Ted sits propped against the back door frame, panting rapidly with his fluffy belly exposed to the sun's heat. He looks like a small buddha, but Maisie sits in the dignified pose of the Sphinx, surveying her domain to keep it free from blackbirds and other insolent intruders. She pants too, though, and blinks in the bright, hot sun.

Where will we flip our first rock today?

Anne-Marie suggests either Castlecliff or Waiinu because they're both beaches Ted will enjoy. I, being misanthropic, opt for the less populated Waiinu, so we leave in the late morning, arriving at a deserted parking spot near a paddock of steers. Paint peels and flakes from the sun-bleached DOC [1] sign, but this is not Waiinu, it's the access to the mouth of the Waitotara river. Anne-Marie had tempted me with tales of an ancient, drowned totara forest, and the prospect of seeing drowned trees, thousands of years old, reaching for the sky from watery graves, had been too much.

So here we are, and Ted's beside himself with the prospect of exploring new territory, with delicious bucolic smells and mud and dung and other forms of dog porn. Given the temptations, he's surprisingly well-behaved though: happy to trot along with Anne-Marie in tow on a tight but not straining leash. We walk the quiet, slightly windswept track with a narrow strip of diverse native shrubs on our left between us and the river, and on our right a low, three wire electric fence separating us from the small mob of steers tracking us with that characteristic mixture of curiosity and fear—they come right up to the fence to stare at us, puffing steam from snotty nostrils, but when I turn to look back at them they run away like hysterical children. Then they trot back because they still can't figure us out.

Skylarks sing above the paddocks; two blackbacked gulls roost on a log in the slow-flowing, murky river; once a pheasant flushes with a roar of wings from just a few metres away and flies low and fast across the river. A couple of utes [2] bounce and joggle past on their way back from the beach, going slowly, waving hello as they pass by.

We cross a Taranaki gate [3] and walk a couple of metres down to the edge of the river. Ted marches in, of course, but I refuse to get my feet wet so hold him on an outstretched leash. The three of us wander along the wet, black sand, out of sight of the track, in our own world, our own time. It feels as if we've left the world of people and cars and entered the world of birds and water and washed-up memories from a hundred years into the future, when all the towns and cities and lonely farmhouses have fallen into ruin. Ahead in the distance, eight white birds roost on a log jam a long way from the shore. I think they're spoonbills, but I've left my binoculars in the Pohangina valley (accidentally) along with the big lens (deliberately). Nearby, the drowned totara forest emerges from the wind-rippled water. It's not what I was expecting—all that's visible is a small collection of small, knob-like stumps.

But we're here to flip rocks. Unfortunately, rocks are scarce, and the few we do flip are in such a water-logged substrate they're home to nothing we can see. Eventually we make our way back to the car. Perhaps we can find something in the garden.

And we do. Not under rocks, but the eucalyptus log is so dense it's close enough. It's home to a good collection of tiny lives, too—perhaps not as exciting as last year's find, but when one looks closely, the segments on a woodlouse must surely be worthy of admiration. And, as one looks so closely it's impossible not to wonder how these tiny animals live their lives. They're all around us, and how much do most of us know about them? A thought crosses my mind: if, by and large, we fail to notice these myriad lives with whom we share the rock we call Earth, what, on some incomprehensibly larger or more advanced scale might, right now, be failing to notice us?

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Notes:
1. DOC is the acronym for Aotearoa's Department of Conservation.
2. "Ute" (pronounced "yoot") is short for "utility vehicle" — a pickup truck in the US.
3. A Taranaki gate is a makeshift gate comprising a length of wire netting with a couple of supporting battens (thin posts attached to the wire but free from the ground) at each end.
4. There's a photo of the river over on my photoblog.
5. In case you're wondering, Ted is a border terrier (Maisie's a Westie).

Photos (click to enlarge them):
1. Under the log. The woodlouse (I like the word much better than "slater") is the cosmopolitan Porcellio scaber; the long, segmented things are millipedes of some sort; the little, short white things with stumpy legs and antennae are springtails (Collembola); the long whitish things are enchytraeid worms (more or less cousins to earthworms). If you want to find out more, Massey University has a wonderful Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Soil Invertebrates. Highly recommended.
2. Some kind of flatworm (Turbellaria). I guess other flatworms find them attractive ;^).
3. A closer view of Porcellio scaber and friends.
4. Maisie guards the garden.

Update (23 September 2009): Here's the list of other rock flippers so far:

The Natural Capital; Fertanish Chatter; Roundrock Journal; Just Playin' Around; What It's like on the Inside; KrisAbel; BugSafari; Sofia_Alexandra; Growing with Science; ChickenSpaghetti; NaturalNotes; Yips and Howls; Rock, Paper, Lizard; Outside My Window; The dog geek; Dave Ingram's Natural History Blog; Via Negativa; Unplug Your Kids; ORCA: Observar, Recordar, Crecer y Aprender; Will Rees Fine Woodworking ...; The Marvelous in Nature; Ontario Wanderer; Bare Baby Feet; The Homefront Lines; Crazy Maize World; Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival; Wanderin' Weeta

And remember to check the Flickr group, too.

Photos and original text © 2009 Pete McGregor

This Sunday it's International Rock Flipping Day

It's International Rock Flipping Day this Sunday, 20 September. The idea's simple — find some rocks, flip them over, record what you find, then share it. Make sure you replace the rocks carefully to restore the homes you've temporarily disturbed, and in particular to avoid injuring any of those little lives. Blog about it, or if you don't have a blog, you can post photos or other artwork on the IRFD Flickr group. This year, Dave Bonta and Bev Wigney have passed the baton (or should that be the rock?) to Susannah Anderson to coordinate the results, so when you've blogged or posted to the Flickr group, email Susannah to let her know (wanderinweeta [at] gmail [dot] com).

Read Susannah's post for the details.

So, this Sunday get out there and enjoy it. Kids (of all ages) find it fascinating and fun, and it's a chance to instill in them a sense of respect, wonder and excitement about the real world.

If you want advice on how to photograph the little critters you might find, Bev has a wonderful post full of common sense about macro photography using point-and-shoot cameras.

Last year's event turned up a cool find for me. What will yours be?

IRFD badge by cephalopodcast

Flipping rocks

A magpie warbles behind the sheds; starlings scuffle in the box surrounding the header tank (they're nesting there, as usual). The monotonous cheep of sparrows; a whoosh of wings as a kereru swoops over the paddock where blackbirds and thrushes peer and tug at worms. Something hops on the iron roof and the dogs whine and bark. Only the kahu remains silent, floating in the early morning sky, circling over the river flats, gaining height near the edge of the terrace. The front paddock glitters with heavy dew, then, as the sun reaches down from the north-east, the sparkling dew retreats into diminishing shadows. The remains of the night vanish into the past. Conservation Week 2008 and International Rock Flipping Day have begun.

Conservation Week runs from 7–14 September but International Rock Flipping Day lasts just 24 hours — well, at least officially: any day's a good day to learn more about what lives in your back yard. Here in Aotearoa we're the first in the world to get going. It's certainly a better day for it than last year, when I checked under a few rocks in the drizzly showers, finding little other than a few harvestmen and a large ground hunting spider. Then, I'd had reservations about disturbing these small lives — I still do — but the instructions are clear: do it with care, record what you find, replace the rock gently, and try to minimise the disturbance.

Dew still saturates much of the steep, south-facing slope that drops to Te Awaoteatua stream, and the memory of last night's cold lingers along the ragged track. Amelie and I move carefully downhill over the slippery grass, checking a few promising stones, but all we find are big, fat earthworms in the sodden soil. A crane fly larva, too, but few animals are less photogenic than a round, dun maggot. It's not even spectacularly ugly, just boringly dull. Ironically, if it survives it will transform into an insect of strange and impossibly delicate beauty; this near-formless, subterranean, legless grub will become an attenuated adult, its body clearly constructed of distinct, chitin-plated parts, supported on legs far longer than its body and as fine as human hair; it will rise into the sky on long transparent wings marked with a strikingly graphic pattern of veins. New Zealand has over 550 species of crane flies (Tipulidae), some flightless, some — possibly many — still unknown to science, some predatory, some vegetarian, some large, some small. The smaller crane flies are often swatted by people who, knowing no better and unwilling to look closely, call them mosquitoes. Yet none bite or sting people.

I replace the rock gently and carry on down the slope, towards the rocks, tussocks, and rotting logs emerging into the sunlight from the shadow of the slope.
"Aren't you going to check these rocks?" Amelie calls from near the track.
" Nah, there's nothing interesting under them. Only worms and stuff. It's too wet."
" Well what about this one? It's got some lovely moss on it."
"Moss! Moss isn't an animal!"
"But it's beautiful," she says. "Look at the all the colours and textures, all these lovely details."

I, however, have reverted to the small boy mindset. Moss does not interest small boys. Things with legs, especially things that might do harm to other small things, are vastly more exciting than moss, or indeed plants in general. Plants just sit there and grow, and one cannot even see them grow. This is wrong, of course, but the selective deafness of small — and large — boys allows no argument.

"What do you hope to find down there anyway," she calls, "— a tuatara?"
"Maybe," I say, becoming stubbornly unreasonable, "or maybe a previously undiscovered population of native frogs."
Both are as likely as all the world's small boys suddenly preferring the flipping of rocks to their playstations and dreams of rockstardom — but one never knows. One must hope.

Beneath several rocks I find an earthworm, nothing, and more nothing. But, carefully easing over the next rock, I find a small, elegant spider — and a skink.

It might not be a tuatara, but it's close enough[1]. And it's exciting enough for this small boy.

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Notes:
1. They're both reptiles, but while skinks are lizards, tuatara are not.

Photos (click to enlarge them):
1. Kereru, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae, Pohangina valley.
2. The small spider, which I haven't yet identified.
3. The skink. We replaced it carefully under the rock and trust it won't be too disturbed by becoming internationally famous.

Update: Other Rock-Flipping Day Reports (check Dave's post for the most recent links):
Blaugustine (London, England); Nature Remains (Ohio, USA); Pensacola Daily Photo (Florida, USA)
KatDoc’s World (Ohio, USA); Notes from the Cloud Messenger (Ontario, Canada); Brittle Road (Dallas, Texas); Sherry Chandler (Kentucky, USA); osage + orange (Illinois, USA); Rock Paper Lizard (British Columbia, Canada); The Crafty H (Virginia, USA); Chicken Spaghetti (Connecticut, USA); A Passion for Nature (New York, USA); The Dog Geek (Virginia, USA); Blue Ridge blog (North Carolina, USA); Bug Girl’s Blog (Michigan, USA); chatoyance (Austin, Texas); Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA); Pines Above Snow(Maryland, USA); Beth’s stories (Maine, USA); A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA); Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada); Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA); The Northwest Nature Nut (Oregon, USA); Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA); The New Dharma Bums (California, USA); The Marvelous in Nature (Ontario, Canada); Via Negativa (Pennsylvania, USA); Mrs. Gray’s class, Beatty-Warren Middle School (Pennsylvania, USA); Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada); Pocahontas County Fair (West Virginia, USA); Let's Paint Nature (Illinois, USA); Sleeping in the Heartland (Midwestern U.S.); Three Oaks (Ohio USA);

Photos and words © 2008 Pete McGregor