Travelling Ant
Out on my wandering in the local byways I often come across something unique, that I only ever see once.
As I was crossing this fallen – with a little help – fence I noticed there was an occupant of unusual character.
The ant, a kind I haven’t seen before, was using the fence line as a highway across the otherwise difficult terrain and appeared in no hurry.
It had been dry for a few days so I wet the line where the ant would pass and when they met it stopped to take a sip. Free moisture can be a rarity in the wild.
An ant might travel the equivalent of many miles for a drink, but not today. Manna from the sky, and it clearly enjoyed it, stopping to sip a while before resuming its journey.
I could wonder where that ant was going but I know already. It’s going home, if it’s not already there.
Small, instinctive, non self reflective mind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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All Sorts …
… from the garden and beyond. Some creatures are only ever seen once, or stop only long enough for one shot. These are a few of those.
If you’re into macro it pays to let the garden manage itself as much as possible. It may take time but it takes time for life cycles to establish and creatures to emerge, whatever the season.
Plant them, feed them, prune them, move them but otherwise let things be as much as possible – whatever you do don’t poison them, if you can help it. Works for me.
Creature of the darkness … Longhorn beetle, favoured the dried out stems for a few nights.
*Click the pictures for a bigger version – the better to see them.
Ant takes time out of its solitary patrol to preen. A few seconds and it was on its way again.
Assassin Bug nymph, shelters under the red flower during the day and hunts at night – lately.
Plant Hopper, looks all bent but it may be moulting – a long time at it.
Click Beetle up on a leaf in the dead of night, shows up once in a blue moon.
Male Lynx spider, caught a fruit-fly meal on a decaying lemon staked in the garden.
Teddy Bear Weevil? Soft and gentle looking. On a post in the car park of the local rainforest remnant.
Bluebottle in the garden, they don’t stop long at all for a shot.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Life On A Lemon
Him – with the longest front legs, on a lemon.
*Click the pictures for a bigger version.
Her, on an orange.
It on my finger. Every time I tried from the side it turned away.
She is actually laying beneath the skin here. He appears to be guarding, attending her.
It got crowded on the lemon after a while.
Alone at last.
Oh, oh … here comes trouble.
Two males fighting over a female, antennae and legs flailing. Not the best but the only shot.
For a change, she appears to seek him out.
These little things, about a centimetre long, are living out their lives on an ageing lemon in the garden, on a bamboo stake. They are attracted to something about the decaying fruit, mold, fungus or/and other qualities not discernible to me.
They live on similarly decaying oranges, and the occasional banana – I have a veritable orchard staked in the garden, all good fun – just to attract the faeries from the bottom of the garden.
Did you know the faeries are insects? Yes, that’s the form they take. And some take no sensible form, preferring the fleetness and relative safety of the insubstantial. Each has its advantages.
The point is though, these creatures of story are in your garden too, if only you look to see, and not to judge. No need for any psychic nonsense either, they are detectable by the senses.
And the wonder of it is sense makes more sense, no nonsense.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Crucified …
A kind of Beetle only found on the pink Crucifix Orchid, so far. Surveying her domain.
*Click the pictures to see bigger version.
She loves a good feed of the freshest buds, both with a colourful heart.
Aware too of the photographer, just doesn’t know me by name.
Disappearing for days at a time she comes and goes by her own nature’s design.
Looking good in her yellow jacket, a warning to some perhaps. Pretty on pink …
Always climbing back up towards the light, where the freshest buds are found.
The rain came followed by a cold snap, here in a sub tropical Brisbane winter, and must have driven all the small creatures into the depths for survival. Those it didn’t kill.
Such is nature, everything in constant flux, no rest in any condition for too long. And of course the weather can be reflective of what’s inside, if you can see it.
Rain to wash away the dust of seasons past, cold to wake you up or knock you down. Nature doesn’t care one way or another, or cares for all the same.
So, Beetle or man, you shake it off or take it on, rise up and start another day.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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The Last Bee
Before : resting undisturbed.
Click on the pix …
Bigger than she looks.
Not a comfortable mouthful for a night-time predator.
And after : back to sleep.
Definitely the last Blue Banded Bee for this year. I have been trying to provide enough for her to survive but I think the cold may get her in the end. I even have a white bowl out with a blue sponge in the middle of it soaked in sugar solution, like a giant flower, so she doesn’t have to fly far first thing on a cold morning to fuel up – haven’t seen her take it yet.
The shots were taken in the dead of a cold night with a reflector under her, so there was less shadow below. It was just a piece of paper attached to the lens by elastic, a bit clumsy really but it worked to a point. I bumped her with it and she protested by spreading her legs that way, as if to say ‘I’m a bigger mouthful than I first looked, and you could choke on my sharp pointy bits’.
They do that when disturbed at night, if it’s cold enough that they don’t fly off to the light, make themselves look bigger. Many creatures do it, cause themselves to appear bigger than they are, or an uncomfortable mouthful, until the threat is gone.
It’s a working strategy people also employ when feeling threatened. Nature … it’s our nature after all.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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In the Morning …
I usually get up and do the usual things, usually. Then I go have a look in the garden, especially if the sun isn’t up yet. That’s when the most elusive creatures may be seen. But no guarantees, nature is still in charge.
I just know a thing or two about it, how it works. That most creatures need heat to function properly isn’t generally known, for instance. Though it should be obvious, isn’t the obvious often overlooked?
The garden is nearly ready for the coming heat and rain that brings the small creatures in their numbers. Daisy’s everywhere, and Sunflowers, and too many other plants to know or name.
As long as it provides that is fine. And it sure provides me with a simple pleasure, I trust it does the coming tribes in all their shapes and colours. Still, I have to keep an eye out for those that would eat it all.
It would be nice to have a hand in the garden, another who sees what I see and can partake. But living is perfect at 80 to 90% good. So it’s good the way it is. Still, who knows what is round the corner.
More living for sure, or the inevitable death. The gardener’s ultimate contribution to the earth? Anybody out there not notice the slow breakdown of the sense engine?
Another birth, more like. You just have to see the space in between.
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Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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A Wave of Wasps
One recent day I noticed all these Ichneumon wasps about. They were flying around checking dark spots on the wood and anything upright. I have seen them before doing this, once, and what happened was the wasp turned round and lowered her pointed end into the darkness and ‘I suppose’ laid an egg, having found something in the darkness to lay it on.
They can smell or otherwise sense with the tip of their tail, very useful that, to a wasp. And it’s not really a tail, it’s an ovipositor, or egg depositor down which she delivers her eggs to a suitable place for growth and development – survival.
That’s what they do when laying time comes, the egg is laid on another creatures laying, such as a grub, and lives and grows on that. Nature doing what it doe, one thing living off another.
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Humans do it too, but they’ve gone mad and feed off each other now. Those movies about people going mad with a rage virus are a metaphor for the truth that seems hidden from most. It’s been happening ever since self reflection caused instinct to warp into emotional self interest.
The way we are. It takes every moments effort to keep that emotion from taking control, as it has with most people. But there’s nothing else worthwhile doing, so …
Into the breach, and see what comes my way …
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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A Jewel of Harlequins
On the white flowered Hibiscus in the nearby bush is a small herd of bugs, Harlequins they are called, don’t know why – possibly for the distinctive symmetrical markings on the ‘face’. These ones are real beauties; they go through many different colours in their little lives, blues, greens and reds. And there are times when they can be found with developing wings that make them look like something from a futuristic car show, and very elegant.
Anyway, these last days they are this wonderful blue with hues and patches of green and red and iridescent, overlaid on a very purposeful looking form. A very attractive little jewel of the forest.
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You have to know where to find them as they don’t appear on all Hibiscus plants, only a few I know of. And then you have to know how to handle them, with care of course. But they also respond to a kind of attention so it’s possible to get a few shots without disturbing them unduly.
And when they are done sitting I put then back exactly where I find them. This one is on my stick, the one I use for stabilising the camera at times is also good for shooting on.
I am usually in the nature just for a walk these days as the little people are shy or just not around after the drastic weather of the last year, and health permitting – other bugs I am catching are from visiting children, no fun at all, the bugs caught this way.
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It’s a simple pleasure of mine, this walking and seeing or sensing. To see the colours and form, the movement and the life in it all.
And then I go home, to tend the wildy garden I have encouraged and nurtured.
Just for a while now.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Dry Time
The long year of rain that washed the bugs away has been followed by a long season of dry, and few bugs are emerging that I can find, not even the Ticks. I had anticipated something of the sort with my gardening work, lots of seeds sown and plants watered with a compost area for bugs to eat and congregate in. The Possum likes the fruit as well. So it’s not all void of creatures to enjoy, albeit tiny creatures mostly.
Even so, everywhere I go there are maturing well fed spiders. It looks like food a plenty but could be a survival strategy, get a net up to catch what you can while there is any catching to be done. But we’ll see how things unfold.
What is coming can be predicted in the big picture, more or less, but the details are unknowable in their timing and context. That wonderful unknown.
There is nothing wrong with there being so few bugs, it’s just different. Last year they were so plentiful at the same times there are few or none this year.
The weather is very different this year, wetter, colder, windier and dryer at different times. And still nature is what it is behind, unmade, of a greater power than man, waving in time.
The one grace of existence, the unmade shining through.
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And here are a couple pix anyway. What a little wonder. And no sign of hunger. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Nature's Place 
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