Live ammunition

Sitting around the rim of the bird bath, New Holland honey eaters enjoy a visit to the pool.

Would you, therefore, put a sling shot into the hands of an eleven year old boy?

I did.

Do the birds look nervous?

My art work recently, as described in recent blogs, has drawn inspiration from the hakea nut; specifically, the visual of how it breaks open to release the seed.

Well, that’s one side of the story. A more fun proposition, even a creative one at that, is to send these really hard nuts flying. Pure delight.

What young Theo is doing is planting hakea seeds.

The word ammunition is a derivative of the word “munition”: the action of fortifying or defending.

Live ammunition is about using life to create life.

It’s all about teaching habitat “construction” rather than habitat “destruction”.

“Shoot for the clouds,” I yell to Theo.

And up over the tree tops the hakea nut flies. Landing 300 feet distant into the dirt, it has all the potential in the world to propagate a fledgling seedling that will eventually provide a home and nesting spot for the boisterous, chirpy honey eaters. (In the top left hand corner of the photo below you can see the hakea beginning its journey.)

Cluster bomb?

And what about those birds?

Their only concern is the pesky one doing all the splashing.

Like everyone else in the world, you have to turn your back to the one making the splash.