Luck …
… or not, that’s life.
It takes intelligence to be a flower. Wonderful colour and form, unfolding all its parts perfectly in this world of sense. As fine a creature as ever emerged from the primal earth.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
A beetle of some kind, I used to know the name, enjoying the pollen bounty in what I call the native crocus – another wonderful creature risen from the earth.
Mother in waiting. There’s many of these crab or ambush spiders amongst the flowers right now. Taking advantage of the many and varied creatures visiting daily and again. Every baby has to eat.
This beetle was in the huntsman’s deadly embrace when a second beetle came along, attracted to my torchlight, and blundered into the scene, causing the spider to take fright.
And then came back and grabbed the second beetle and took it to a safer place to subdue, up a bamboo stem, and hung there from two back legs while pumping venom into the prey.
What’s this, a head of some kind, in a kind of embrace. A Dragonfly’s head.
I saw the body first and thought it had been attacked by another dragonfly, they do that. But then found the head, just under the exposed fan blades. Two and two this time = 4.
The garden is coming along fine, with many creatures to be found at different times of the day, and night.
Everything has its place and time, some could be managed better, but overall the garden, the place where nature happens, is doing fine.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Nature's Place 
It is amazing to see the special shapes of the animals, e.g. the mouthparts of the beetle and the physique of the spider. These shapes look so arbitrary. They could have looked very different. Some coincidence has led exactly to the bloated shape of the spider.
Yes, it is amazing. But arbitrary, coincidence? I don’t think so, it looks to me like everything is exactly as it needs to be to enable it to fill its niche in the system of nature in keeping the earth machine ticking over. It looks like precision to me, albeit in chaotic appearance. To me …
Evolution could have worked differently. The point is, that there are existing parts and from this point on evolution develops.
They say that the human brain is chaos. But you have all those ancient parts in it, you have to deal with them and build something new on the top of it. Same perhaps with insects. You cant build from the scratch. So some developments look rather odd.
Can’t argue with that. :-)
Two and Two? I’m missing something here.
Haha … It’s just that things don’t always add up the way they first appear. At first there’s the headless dragonfly body and I’ve seen dragonfly’s decapitate their own kind before – territorial business maybe. Absent any other evidence it’s reasonable to assume that’s what happened here. But then the head was found under the outdoor fan blades, not eaten just beaten. Early assumptions didn’t add up in the face of the eventual evidence.
Something like that …
There is also reference to it in earlier posts that the rational, symbolised in 2 + 2 = 4, doesn’t pertain.
Thanks for the clarification. Best wishes from the cold, rainy, but beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Thanks Sheila. All the best.
I know, that’s life ;-) Enjoy the weekend and many greets.
I know you know, but not everyone does. :-)
Awesome macro shots, even when they are a bit cruel…. ;-)
I don’t see cruel, just life – what is and what must be.
Thanks Rudi.