Jumper …
So named for their ability to leap a good distance with some accuracy these spiders are the cuddly arachnids. They display a curiosity and fearlessness I would only expect to find in a pet or otherwise domesticated creature.
This one, a male with his punk hair-do, was on the door handle and I caught him just as he fell as I touched it. So I put him on a flower where he sat, maybe to catch something to eat …
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If pix or text don’t appear as normal that’s because I am using a different computer and having to improvise on what software I use on elements. It’s a different screen too, so can’t tell if pix look what I am used to.
My computer crashed and I haven’t been able to get it fixed, it may just be dead and gone. I should be able to recover files eventually but I’m not in any hurry, as long as there are bugs in the garden to photograph.
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Sometimes it’s a ‘blessing in disguise’ to lose what has grown over a period of years, a form of surgery. An opportunity to start again, at least to keep it simpler.
If I learn anything by experience it’s that, complicated fills the space reserved for peace – of mind.
And we do according to our … capacity or willingness to see through the imagery.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Advertising …
Everything’s an ad, symbolises or points to something else. Can’t get away from it, in relationship – existence.
This spider was waving to another spider across the way, part of the mating ritual I believe – having seen other spiders do similar that was obviously ritual.
Some are very demonstrative, colourful, eager. Others wary, reticent, indifferent. People can be emotional too, carrying the weight of particular past, as we tend to.
No matter, we do our best to transcend the robotic and all’s equal in the end. The end being the absence of all that existential commotion.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Gardening …
… in the mind too.
Spring time and all the forms of nature are on the rise. These flies, Doli for short, emerged around one particular plant and I got some shots in the early morning. Have tried getting some shots of the adults but they are flash sensitive and are gone on the pre-flash. It’s rare they stay for a shot.
Occasionally it occurs to me how I started doing macro. After I got a camera and was spending time in nature it became obvious my attraction was to the small creatures at my feet rather than big creatures over there or broad landscapes.
The nearer the better it seems soon took my energies and it was 2 or 3 years of application before I was really any good. It was a process of elimination, of what didn’t work, to reveal what works.
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Someone started me on it, photography. I don’t remember exactly how but do remember C had some influence. He was a friend in his way. I say ‘his’ way since he was a friend and then one day he just stopped communicating.
Don’t know what happened but I am grateful for the small things. From seed big trees grow, and die.
All the best C old friend, wherever thee may be.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Little Heart, Big Hearted …
Mother Carpenter Bee making the nest early 2013 – a rare appearance as she tossed debris
Male Carpenter Bee feeding on nearby flowers
The best I could get – he’s big and fast – I was lucky
It’s a male Carpenter Bee, I think. It has been occupying the nest excavated in 2013 by the female/mother – I believe – Carpenter Bee. The nest is in a two inch thick stick I had to secure to a metal rod after it rotted in the ground – soft wood.
Then I built the no-till garden beds and recently, a week or so ago, sowed some seed that needed shade from the hot sun, and the shade got in the bees way of returning home – that I noticed one day, having already missed it.
So I remedied the situation, I thought, only to find something else had acted to block the nest for a short while. And no bee to be seen for days now. I wonder if it has another nest somewhere …
I doubt its little heart could survive the rigours of homelessness for long, not like people do. People, it seems, can adapt to almost anything … almost.
We can usually retreat, recover and renew – if the situation allows.
*And just after posting this he returned to the nest.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Nature's Place 
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