Geez …
… it’s been a while since I put anything on here, but not dead yet. How many time I have said that now. :-)
Pennant Dragonfly on a recent walk, blowing in the wind on a hillside in the hot Aussie sun. A few keepers in spite of that, knowing a few things, persistence helps.
If you click on the pix they show bigger in a new tab. If you’re on Firefox anyway.
Love the angles, love the elegance, the strangeness and variety of form … love the nature, our nature.
An emperor Dragonfly? A more difficult subject, wouldn’t stay still or near for long at all. Seems from the staining on the nearside wings it’s had a close call with other nature, maybe a spider’s web that it freed itself from – I’ve seen that happen, a momentary collision and instinctive extraction.
Candy coloured flowers, considered an invasive species, Lantana. There’s lots of them in Oz, invasives. No wonder with this one, where it grows thick there’s no way through it. But lovely colours, and the local nature adapts. … What’s invasive anyway, us as we are? Sure looks that way. … And everything serves something or it couldn’t be, including its management, it’s growth and destruction.
Little green bug on the straw-flower from SA I think. Just enjoying it’s day on the pollen. A new season of these flowers has just begun, not long after the last one ended – seeds from then. We’ll see how it goes with winter coming soon enough.
Female Orange Tail resin bee just finishing off sealing her nest site on one of my old bee hotels. I’ve had the hotels over a decade now and they’re still going strong. … They have their cycles, of death and decay and plenty. And everything takes it’s place as the space becomes vacant and viable.
A male Orange Tail resin bee, I think. They waste no time looking for a mate, straight out of the nest. … But there’s a socialising goes on that not many notice, since it is only apparent when observed over a long time span and dots are connected – I’m no academic to be keeping notes – but these ones. So could just be saying hello. Well maybe …
And within those cycles, a nest site becomes unused by the bees for a while, whatever was in there emerges or wastes away, and a wasp moves in if the space is viable. Obviously a mud working wasp of some kind, makes an entrance-way out of mud to protect access to the interior, a mud tunnel. Inventive nature … security access.
And other part time residents of the bee hotels. Another kind of bee, or wasp? Some of the visitors are so small the only way they could use the ‘made for bees’ sites is when those sites have been used again and again until the entrance is small enough to enter and protect or defend. For a tiny bee let’s say.
Which way was it now … up or down. Such a choice of sites available at times.
I thought it was a gecko at first it was so small, and my vision so poor. Turns out it’s a water dragon, maybe old enough for a first moult. About four inches long. Then I saw the other adult water dragons about the place, so I leave some fruit out for them and they are becoming less shy of me. … For a post on the adults at another location go here – https://beingmark.com/2024/03/22/kates-friendly-fiend/
Included for the clean background. The way I like it, when I can have it. Clean space.
Well, I am still surrounded by nature, though I am having to go find it again, the small living things. Not a bad thing, got my body working again so I can walk longer distances to do so. Needs must …
But I am more aware the end is in sight. I suppose anybody who lives long enough sees it coming, as the signs amplify and propogate. And plans for management of the inevitable decline of capacity – those first few inches of getting up off the floor for instance.
But who wants to talk about it, some do, some don’t. And everybody has to live their own life. Can’t be told, won’t be told, and why would you. Except to do what you do, as much as possible without the friction of reference to past or future imaginings.
And so we go on, doing what we do. Not always knowing what is to be until the moment, since not all planning survives the day, being subject to greater forces and powers at work. The forces of inertia and the powers of evolution, or revolution – if that is to be.
But the sun does shine, the wind does blow, the stars fill the dark night sky, the nature does call. The birds knock and sing at the back door for a feed.
Who knows what comes next. The bright morning’s birth and decline, or an end to endless change? Time will tell, we’ll see.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Nature's Place 
Love seeing Lantana viewed as a beauty, rather than the beast we all know her to be. Great shots.
Thanks J. Everything has it’s place, even when it seems to some to be out of place. Lantana can be very destructive of the native bushland though, and impossible to pass through once it’s established.
great work as usual. .Mark.
I think we shared a coffee about 15 years ago in Springwood. Your work has progressed. Mine has gone backwards.
You also put together some great sentences there of deep meaning.
I know the feeling. I am well past my ’80s now..And everyday is a bonus.
Maybe we could share another coffee sometime?
Cheers, Ken
Thanks Ken.
Backwards? No such thing. There’s only evolution. It might look or feel like backwards but that’s just the same way night follows day, day follows night – it looks and feels ??? depending on perspective. Pull back far enough and it’s all just parts of the whole, and it’s the space it all happens in that really matters.
Matter depends on space. In that sense space comes first, a sense of space – where we go to sleep at night, though we might only remember the dream.
Springwood is not too far away, if you’re still there. A coffee, sure why not? Just nursing my fuel reserves at the moment, watching what comes next.
Reply with your email so we can converse – I’ll delete it from here once I’ve got it. Hearing is no good for the phone.
Later … M (send me your email address in reply here)
Welcome back. It’s been awhile. Glad you are here showing your unique perspective.
Thanks Lunar. A while indeed. Just throwing a little ink at the wall, might add to or cover up some of the writing on it.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful photos Mark. And your thoughts… I really hope you’re doing ok and will be walking this earth for many years more – Mother Earth needs people like yourself. Look after yourself. All the very best.
Thanks A … I’m doing fine, I think. And I’ll be here for as long as the need applies, not a moment longer, or less. :-)
Thank you for the gift of your beautiful photography and life lessons, Mark. It is enough.
Thanks Tracy. Just doing my best, trusting it’s not too much of this, or too little of that.
Your photos are so wonderful….the first one, in particular, showing the dragonfly’s abdomen, as if it telescoped further and further out…balancing its head and chest just as much as necessary…
Thanks Chris. That one is taking advantage of the wind, to keep it balanced so all it needs to do to launch is let go it’s hooked feet – no or minimal effort. There are predators about, as adept predators are especially aware.
I always enjoy your blog. Your world is so different from mine. Keep posting!
Thanks A … Everything passes. I’ll aim to.
Fabulous photos Mark, thank you for sharing.
Thanks Jo-Anne.
As usually, stunning pictures Mark!
Thanks Alexander. Nature presents, we do our thing. :-)
Welcome back. I see you’ve not lost your touch for excellent photos, both technically and aesthetically. It’ a shame Lantana are invasive in Australia. My wife keeps two flower boxes full of them and they are great for attracting butterflies and (to my amazement) hummingbirds.
Thanks David. In the right/wrong place they take over the understory, and as you say, are food at another time and place. Someone’s flower box is probably where they started here.
Stunning pictures, as usual!
Thanks A … from a long way away.