Nature's Place

I noticed it a few days ago but I didn’t mention it, maybe because I didn’t really believe it. There are a few spots along the coast near where I live where I frequently go. One of them I enjoy because there is a fair walk from the road where I have to park the car, and the walk is through coastal bushland where wallaby’s and birds and goanna live. Even though there are many farms around here and it is often used by people passing through it is still wild in many ways.

Today I took a pic of another kind of wildness I didn’t expect to find here. Just a few metres in from the road, in plain view of anyone walking this way, was a small bush with women’s bra’s draped over it like tinsel on a Christmas tree. That’s what it was, some sex obsessed man’s present to himself that no doubt served to quell some emotional demand in him. The demand for sexual gratification.

All men have it, this demand, it’s what drives the reproduction of the species. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what all animal bodies do. But man, through thinking about his sexuality, has emotionalised and complicated the matter out of all proportion.

The fact is all bodies mate in some way or other. Sex is sex and serves the species. But man has realised the need for love but he doesn’t know how to find it, so he gets confused about sex.

Poor man.

I went on in towards the beach and saw some shrubbery a little past the narrow trail to the sand and I thought I’d investigate. There were a few different kinds of grasshopper amongst the foliage and a few different insects. I took a load of photo’s and got a few good shots, I always try a few different settings and modes to learn what works, where and when. A delicate hopper, a two faced spider, and a tiger bug.

I went on in to the beach and it was lovely. There was nobody there for miles in both directions and the waves were crashing with that incessant roar that is always here by the ocean. I walked a while along the edge of the water, sometimes getting my feet and legs wet. Nice, cool water. Along the length of the beach I could see flotsam, loads of driftwood and some rubbish from some far away place.

The driftwood was as big as trees at times, some so big they had sunk into the sand and only the main trunk and some branches sticking up here and there. I wonder where all the driftwood came from, somewhere up or down the coast maybe? or some far off land where there had been a mighty storm. I don’t know, I couldn’t tell the kind of wood. We have had coconuts along here so it’s not unthinkable the trees came from another land. It could even be from that tsunami so many months ago.

The clouds were multiform and lovely and soft in a blue sky. And the white of the foam on the breaking waves was easy on the eye.

When I turned around I came back by the softer sand. I often do this for the exercise. To walk in the soft sand is demanding of a full range of movement of the legs and hips that helps strengthen and mobilise the hips and lower spine. The muscles from the calf to the tip of the toes are all vigorously engaged. It’s good for the body basically.

I am relatively new to photography, I’m sure I have mentioned it before. There were a few puddles of water on the trail where it collects after the rain. The birds know about these puddles and like to bathe in them when nobody is around. I’ve seen them before. I waited about five metres away for one to go to the water but as soon as I stopped so did they. It’s like that around here, the creatures are very shy.

But I waited anyway and it paid off. Splash, one bird dipped in for a quick bath but was gone before I even saw it clearly. Then another. So I stood there with the camera pointed at the spot I thought would be best and set the pre-focus so all I had to do was complete the press of the shutter button.

I was looking at the lcd screen on the back of the camera for the bird to drop into the water and as soon as It did I pressed the button. And splash is all I got, it was just too quick for me. I took another one and splash is all I got again. It was getting dark and the mozzies were coming out so I went home.

This amazing beast, monster moth, was at the doorway when I got back.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery