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.
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 avoidance.
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 …
*
*
Nature's Place 
As usually, stunning pictures Mark!
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.