Birds
Now that summer is over and the supply of food is diminishing the wildlife is getting hungry, not just the birds.
Wallabies, rats, iguanas, everything is feeling the change of season and what it means when you live a wild life.
On the edge, hunger not too sharp yet, competition not so fierce. Though the wildlife do it differently.
Nobody holds on to the past. Whatever is done is done and gone. Every day is a new day.
They have no ‘second’ nature to trouble them. No remembrance of facts interpreted.
Just life as it is here and now.
The wild life.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Spidery Ways
It’s been raining a lot lately and at times the ground moves with the life forms traveling on the wet.
Refugees, just some of nature’s creatures seeking respite from the deluge.
And what is death to one is life to another.
Such are the ways.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Kate’s Friendly Fiend
Kate is a friend, who has a friend.
Kate thinks her friend is a bit of a fiend.
Because her friend likes to nibble Kate’s toes.
And Kate is afraid her friendly fiend will eat her toes.
By mistake maybe, thinking her toes would make a good meal.
I don’t think her friend is so fiendish, but not just friendly either.
*
He came one day and got fed, so he came again, and got fed, and so …
He became a friend, because of self interest, and survival. Same thing really.
But a dragon is a dragon, fiendishly cunning in his will to survive, tempered …
By the will to survive in a new situation. Not dragon to dragon, or other wild creature.
But dragon to Kate, who would feed him, if he’s nice. And so, being a dragon …
A dragon he must be, but tempered, by Kate who feeds him, as long as he’s nice.
So nice he will be, though still a dragon, a nice dragon.
Instead of biting Kate’s toes and trying to eat them.
He nibbles a toe … he’s hungry …
Just to let you know.
*
There’s a lesson in every encounter, you know.
And all you have to do is the hardest, let go.
Of what you feel, and think you know.
There it is, there you go.
Nothing to show.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Pelican Grooming
I did get a shot of one in flight as it passed overhead. But I can’t find it now. Ok, enough about the one that got away.
Down by the island ferry terminal to Coochiemudlo, these pelicans do show up and roost on top of very tall lamp posts and power poles.
I’m not there often enough to get more than the lazy part of the day, as they preen themselves, keeping their cloth in the best of nick for their daily doings.
It’s a common enough scene in nature, from the smallest to the biggest, they tend to their best functioning by preening etc, which tends to their appearance.
Not unlike us … Ok, maybe not all of us, all the time …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Revisiting …
… and visiting anew.
The big singer, little bird, has been practicing in the mirror again. Though he seems to have other things on his mind first thing of the day – maybe he found a mate after all that song.
I went outside the other day, to do what I do, looked down and there next to me was an unexpected guest. Python, with a big belly, snoozing while her digestion did its work – I think so.
And a little colour, a darkling beetle on a red strawflower. Such a wonder, could something insignificant be so adorned. Or it’s not insignificant at all.
The red eyed bee is about again. Caught her exiting the nest site from provisioning it for her young, then sealing it up with chewed eucalyptus leaf.
Just a few of the recent visitors to house and garden.
Life goes on.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
The Regulars
I am lucky here, having a place on acreage that’s surrounded by nature’s characters coming and going with their families in this springtime.
I look out my sliding glass door or window and I see green, I hear birds all the time, and if anyone is hungry they let me know. I’m not one to refuse to feed the nature, and not the only one around here.
We have already intruded on them and denying them is an unnecessary complication of self. Apparently the experts now agree, so we can all stop feeling guilty or confused for feeding the wildlife. Silly isn’t it, the nonsense that prevails sometimes.
Sticking to quality ingredients and moderation won’t induce illness or dependence.
Just like us, if we’re careful, in a crazy world. Hmm …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Maggie
This pied magpie is sometimes on the stool outside my door in the mornings, waiting for a bit of my breakfast maybe. Occasionally warbling a complex song to the sky.
I consider the magpie an intelligent creature, communicative to people. Not that other birds aren’t intelligent, but in their own and different ways. All are embraced in this space.
There’s a society of birds where I live. Different tribes or families with their distinct sensible form and character, behaviours and place in the pecking order of things. And whatever the conflict, they never go to war.
It’s interesting to watch them go about their business, and how they sometimes make my business theirs. When I’m eating for instance, but not only. They do like fresh water, as the place heats up.
In the breeding season the Maggie can be threatening to some people, though not to me. I think they can pick those who can be harassed, and harass them. It’s the vibe.
So watch out, if you’re afraid of the Maggie he’ll know. If he comes for you be contrary, look up and raise your arm up to the sky. That will confound him.
Or make a friend of him, or her, at other times.
One of the colourful characters of Oz.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
* If you’re interested in buying a picture or two see this page – Pictures of Bees and Frogs for sale.
Red Eyed Bee
Today while sitting on the verandah I noticed some activity around one of the old bee hotels. Thinking it might be an old, or new, orange tail resin bee moving back in I got the camera to have a closer look.
But it wasn’t an old bee, it was a new one. A new red eyed red head bee. I’d never seen this one up close before. It’s a resin bee, and that’s chewed up leaf its working to seal the nest entrance with.
Native trees with such new workable green leaves after the recent rains would probably also have other characteristics. Eucalypt resins are known for their medicinal properties.
Isn’t it amazing how parts of earth nature fit so beautifully with other parts. And all the parts make up the whole of the earth.
And the whole earth nature is a part of the solar nature, then the deeper cosmic nature.
All the parts fit perfectly together, from the stars to the bees.
Everything in its place …
*
It does suggest something holds it all together, some principle or other, something unknown. Maybe even unknowable.
Now what could that be … mmm?
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
Stoned …
They’ve been around since I got here, a pair of stone curlews. They recently had two chicks and spend much of their time looking after them, though there’s not a lot of food about.
Far from stone still, or stone silent, they can be raucous neighbours – the curly bit. But such is life at times. They’re part of the motley crew of birds and others coming and going about the garden.
…
Started https://www.instagram.com/wild.macro.nature/ recently. And doing a lot of work for the market stall on weekends – https://beingmark.com/contact/pictures-for-sale-bees-and-frogs/ – it’s been unexpectedly time consuming.
A few pix for sale on ebay now – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414378564 – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414404428 – https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166414429747
And the garden’s doing nicely, might even have some new pix to post soon enough, here and there.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
6 comments