Nature's Place

It has rained on and off for weeks now, or so it seems, little sense of time. Everything outside is wet, and everything inside is damp. But it is not cold, to me.

In the bush today at Mt Cotton it was lovely to see the dams were full, lovely water, cool and wet. Muddy tracks too. The wild forms of life are still numerous and enjoying the change of temperature, though some die, as always. Some live too.

On one particular young flowering bottlebrush tree I observed the ant’s perennial search for nourishment force an encounter with an intransigent creature, a tiny Cicada. The ants were all over it but didn’t know how to make any impression on it to react, it was armoured to them, untouched.

Hoverfly came to inspect a purple flower just above the ground, tiny wasp took sustenance from another pink flower, red eyed dragonfly rested in the shadows until I disturbed it – a colourful young beauty indeed, two red and black ladybugs mated on the leaf of a short plant, colourful spider ate a ladybug in the safety of the web, young toad looked me in the eye while I took his photo.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up a small yellow flower from amongst the shadows, a young tree frog sat on the fence and didn’t move while everything else happened around him, and golden ant prowled the red terrain in search of what ants seek.

Majestic electric blue moth crossed my path. Gecko sat for me on the whitewashed wall behind the window grating, eyeballed me too. And a few more of natures creatures passed on by.

As I was leaving this cool wet place the sun shone warm through the trees and lit up the path.

© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge (nine below)