Adventures after Dark
Because of advancing age and early injury that result in the slow breakdown of the body, I make compensations or compromises to go on doing what I most enjoy as far as practical application of my skills, character and predisposition are concerned.
So, in the cool of the night, rather than the heat of the day, I have been making the best of what I know of the wildlife hear-abouts – capturing them while they sleep or are otherwise less cognisant of me and my approach for a shot.
Since finding them and learning of their roosting and sleeping habits a few years ago bee’s have been my favourite creature to image, especially at the dawn or dusk when the temperature is best for taking some time for getting the composition right – for my taste – especially the now little seen Leaf-Cutter bee.
I am long past chasing them around during the day, though I do love to get shots of them foraging it is rare enough that you don’t see many, but time tells all – all that can be told in that time is enough. I don’t fret it is the point – not that I am Mr Peaceful either at times, human is more appropriate, with a spiritual (a word that conjures images of charlatans selling the all-cure snake oil on the street corner – for me) bent – and I know better, though the real thing appears rarely – whatever ‘real’ is.
I won’t go on too much now, or last too long maybe, so I will do what I can to bring you the beauty of the form, colour and function of our little cousins – before they too disappear from common, or any, awareness. Because the way things are going, business as usual or worse from our esteemed social leaders, it won’t be long before we, the people, wonder what happened to make the earth such a hostile and difficult place, when in fact and truth it is the world that is hostile – two completely separate realities extant in parallel.
Is it really a choice? Or an inevitability, as Man never really learns except by pain. Unfortunate, or just the fact of human nature? You have to start with the fact …
The earth will be ok in the end, as it was in the beginning. It doesn’t suffer, it only undergoes, and still is, regardless, irrepressible.
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
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Painted Stranger
Once more unto the breach, dear friends – however small that hole may be. And never relent in the making of light, no matter what the impediment.
That’s what this endeavour of mine is at times; a reminder to acknowledge the simple good of sense through the wall of mind or physical pain that depends only on what I attend to – largely.
And so there was this visitor in the garden that I had only before seen in passing flight, its size and flash of colour the only track of its existence. A mystery until it presented in masked form, a mystery still.
The Passion-fruit Vine attracts many a visitor these days, being of fruiting maturity, flowers of delightful aroma. An oasis to many a little one, the fairies and elves of our nature, that come and go as they please.
Occasionally inspected by the Vine’s guardians, the little army of black ants that know no fear or favour – just the command of form and function.
There is no disposition in nature to give up, until the end, of form and function – missing a piece of a leg a beginning, a common condition – mobility being essential in an ever moving world.
Anything not mobile is ant food.
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
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Gardener’s Delight?
I suppose that depends on what kind of gardener you are. For one who enjoys macro and all the magnificent creatures that become apparent in all their wonderful colour and architecture it is a delight indeed what can be found, usually just by being there in the garden doing nothing more than enjoying the sense of it all.
One day I saw this giant wasp land on what was supposed to be something of a birdbath, with water plants and stones and things in it for any other creature that might find it attractive. What was unusual was the size of it; about 2.5 inches long and it would fly with all legs hanging down so it looked very relaxed, without a care in the world.
It was collecting water from the bath, either for drinking or to help with making a nest somewhere nearby, probably up in the rotten old paperbark trees. A kind of Potter Wasp I believe that would use the water not just for slaking a thirst but also for making or lining the mud nests it builds.
Then I saw a second one and the first appeared almost immediately after it and they both chased each other around for some time until they landed on the birdbath and started mating by the edge. I still didn’t approach them for any shots as they are extremely sensitive to changes in their environment and I didn’t want to interrupt.
So I let them do what they do and eventually off they flew up into the trees of the garden. They came and went at different times until one day I was surprised to see one just sitting there on one of the stones. It wasn’t a perfect situation for a shot but I took what I was offered and here it is.
What surprised me was the fact I have only ever seen these wasps in the deep bush where they have a distinct ‘don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you’ sort of attitude. In other words they command respect, and rightly so. There’s an unmistakable intelligence about them.
I gave them their space and they gave me a few pictures. That’s as it is, no problem. Season’s not over yet, though the rain keeps falling …
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
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Nature's Place 
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