To Winter …
A new frog for my little garden. See the red, on its inside rear thing. I found it near the makeshift frog-pond – a tub of rainwater with various attachments to make it homely, to a from, or other small aquatic creatures.
Time enough for a few shots. Aiming for max presented surface in focus, with emphasis on the eyes and face. Always single frame shots, no stacking and no photoshop desired.
Bather at the bird-bath. A wet gathering this day, in between the rains. Looking raggedy, but they dry out nicely.
Move over guys and girls … They came, they saw and ate, and had a bath, before taking to the air and off into the wilds again.
Rainbow Lorikeet, they don’t stop for long so you have to be quick, quick enough.
One of them will always be keeping an eye out for danger, especially from the eagles way up in the sky. And the alarm rings out …
At first I thought it was a native wasp. But close up I’m not sure. I’m am sure it doesn’t mind though.
Naming and categorising is not in their nature, nor mine – with my memory for such things.
Gecko, just a youngster, possibly washed down from the roof in yesterday’s rains. It poured down for a while.
Dangerously exposed, near where the butcher-birds come to feed. But it survived a whole day and lived to tell … Lucky thing.
… you wouldn’t believe it, our winter, if you’re from one of those cold countries in the north. It’s more like an English springtime.
Mildly raining, on and off, flowers still growing, slowly. But still the garden is alive with the comings and goings of creatures.
And when the sun shines you realise how blessed we are, with such a congenial climate and engaging wildlife.
Lucky, you could say. Lucky wherever I am, whoever …
I just have to acknowledge it.
Sense to sensation.
Hmmm …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Little Man
This is how he likes to spend a little time close to Kate, relaxed.
Trying out the other chair, smelling the flowers no doubt.
A stern look. Now what did I do?
Did I drive him up the walls, maybe.
A few feet from the back door. Just saying hello.
And posing for a few shots.
The wall he was driven up.
Looking at you …
Looking …
As I stepped out into the garden and there he was. Little Man, Kate’s friendly dragon, lingering, watching.
In a flurry of action he jumped up onto the back of the chair, his favourite spot where he can see afar, and waits to see who I am, what I’m about in his garden.
Friend or foe, leaning to friend, as I toss him a bit of my food. He was waiting for it, we have met before. And he remembers.
These short encounters map a not insignificant tributary in a world of experience, for the little man.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Birds
The Laughing Kookaburra. Usually seen in a family group, who knows what’s happened to the rest of them. S/he sits on the post in the garden, surveying the landscape and lets me take a few pictures. With winter coming I have some food ready for them, just enough to keep going. We’ll see … Proud thing.
The Butcher Bird, a youngster. Comes with mum and dad who sing their melodious song, and so I give them a bite to eat. It’s always a pleasure to engage with them, to say hello. Everyone communicating in their way. They come and they go without attachment.
Eastern Curlew. Crazy Curlew. Well, they do give that impression at times but nothing in the wild is crazy. That epithet is rightly reserved for Man, describing an unnatural condition on the way out and then a season to pass through on the way home again. It’s all quite natural, for Man.
Curlew again, because I like it so much. They have no self-consciousness, just do what they do and move on, to do what they do. Driven by instinct, especially for food and shelter now that winter is coming. But wherever there is engagement with the wild life there is a communication, in some sense.
House Martins, or Swifts, they make their nests under the jetty at Victoria Point. Too fast for an in flight shot and the only time they stop still is when the wind is up. And so it was, a howling wind made captive subjects. Captured by nature, their own nature. Aren’t we all … Until we’re not.
Now what does that mean … But anyway, little darlings, aren’t they.
Honey eater, female I think. They life a bit of fruit too.
The one that got away, the lost picture. A pelican in flight overhead. Just got the one shot, not bad I think. Let’s see what the new season brings.
Now that summer is over and the supply of food is diminishing the wildlife is getting hungry, not just the birds.
Wallabies, rats, iguanas, everything is feeling the change of season and what it means when you live a wild life.
On the edge, hunger not too sharp yet, competition not so fierce. Though the wildlife do it differently.
Nobody holds on to the past. Whatever is done is done and gone. Every day is a new day.
They have no ‘second’ nature to trouble them. No remembrance of facts interpreted.
Just life as it is here and now.
The wild life.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Spidery Ways
At the edge of the verandah where it was relatively dry, for spidery business, a big huntsman sat immobile, in observation.
In a flurry of spidery action, legs and fangs whipped to instinctive focus, an unfortunate one treading, became a spidery meal.
The rain kept up and another refugee, wolf spidery mum and her yet to hatch spiderlings, came in out of the wet.
And so you know I’m not making it up, a batch of hatched spiderlings on another mum’s back, hiding. How she looks after them.
From behind, she wasn’t stopping still for long, gotta get the little ones to safety, in a ball, carried by a thread.
And from the front, what’s this, a springtail maybe, at home in the wet. But too small to eat, lucky creature, springtail.
It’s been raining a lot lately and at times the ground moves with the life forms traveling on the wet.
Refugees, just some of nature’s creatures seeking respite from the deluge.
And what is death to one is life to another.
Such are the ways.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Kate’s Friendly Fiend
Little Man … is his name. He’s a real poser when relaxed, and a fine looking friend.
He’s a friendly looking fellow too, there’s the beginning of a smile. Not a sign of aggression, just a boldness of presence.
With a bit of red to show he’s proud and unafraid. Willing to stand up and stand out, when needs be.
And he can see with both eyes, 360′. Head held high the better to see afar. Calms the wildness of the wild.
An unrelenting gaze, ever watchful, never too comfortable. Ready for action.
He’s a wild thing after all, though he may smile. He survives in the garden, a wild place to him, and home enough. Enough of a home, for a dragon.
And when he’s really hungry he comes to Kate for a bite. And if she forgets he’ll remind her with a nibble. He’s a friendly fiend after all.
No malice here, and intelligence enough not to cross the bounds, when he knows them. He’s evolving, after all.
He’s a youngster still, learning, to survive in Kate’s garden. Means his instinct is tempered by experience. He learns …
So he needs teaching. And who better than Kate, to nurture this Little Man on his way to doing his best, against the pressures of ‘Civilization’.
What does he see? Could it be he keeps an eye on his sub-domain, to protect himself, and his friend?
Keeping an eye out for snakes or other danger, or boon, that would threaten or support his survival. Looking past the flowers in the way.
And so he looks after Kate, in his way. Though he thinks she deserves a nibble when he’s too hungry, just to remind her.
Who’s that up above, is it an eagle, a tree snake, or …? No, it’s super Kate, with a morsel to nourish and educate him. It’s all give and take.
And who is that reflected in his eye, never mind. It’s good to have a Little Man guarding the place, in the land of snakes. And good to have a friend in nature … uncivilized, but friendly in his way.
Kate is a friend, who has a friend.
Kate thinks her friend is a bit of a fiend.
Because her friend likes to nibble Kate’s toes.
And Kate is afraid her friendly fiend will eat her toes.
By mistake maybe, thinking her toes would make a good meal.
I don’t think her friend is so fiendish, but not just friendly either.
*
He came one day and got fed, so he came again, and got fed, and so …
He became a friend, because of self interest, and survival. Same thing really.
But a dragon is a dragon, fiendishly cunning in his will to survive, tempered …
By the will to survive in a new situation. Not dragon to dragon, or other wild creature.
But dragon to Kate, who would feed him, if he’s nice. And so, being a dragon …
A dragon he must be, but tempered, by Kate who feeds him, as long as he’s nice.
So nice he will be, though still a dragon, a nice dragon.
Instead of biting Kate’s toes and trying to eat them.
He nibbles a toe … he’s hungry …
Just to let you know.
*
There’s a lesson in every encounter, you know.
And all you have to do is the hardest, let go.
Of what you feel, and think you know.
There it is, there you go.
Nothing to show.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
*
*
Not Another Frog …
First shot available and taken, including dark ordure. Sometimes life just ain’t pretty, or easy.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
It quickly became apparent this horse fly was for posing, even positioning, gently.
Angles available without too much movement to disturb. A much settled fly.
There happened to be the red nasturtium for background. Nice contrast …
Can’t see what I’ve got til I get it back to the computer. They don’t usually stay for seconds.
In for the detail of the business end of things, what bites, draws blood.
With the warming weather comes a burgeoning of forms from the nearby woods to the long garden.
One in recent days is the horse fly. Usually too busy a fly for me to get any shots of at all.
Then, during one of my frequent visits to the garden, I saw this female at rest.
And went to work … what we do.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
*
*
A Jewel of Harlequins
On the white flowered Hibiscus in the nearby bush is a small herd of bugs, Harlequins they are called, don’t know why – possibly for the distinctive symmetrical markings on the ‘face’. These ones are real beauties; they go through many different colours in their little lives, blues, greens and reds. And there are times when they can be found with developing wings that make them look like something from a futuristic car show, and very elegant.
Anyway, these last days they are this wonderful blue with hues and patches of green and red and iridescent, overlaid on a very purposeful looking form. A very attractive little jewel of the forest.
*
You have to know where to find them as they don’t appear on all Hibiscus plants, only a few I know of. And then you have to know how to handle them, with care of course. But they also respond to a kind of attention so it’s possible to get a few shots without disturbing them unduly.
And when they are done sitting I put then back exactly where I find them. This one is on my stick, the one I use for stabilising the camera at times is also good for shooting on.
I am usually in the nature just for a walk these days as the little people are shy or just not around after the drastic weather of the last year, and health permitting – other bugs I am catching are from visiting children, no fun at all, the bugs caught this way.
*
It’s a simple pleasure of mine, this walking and seeing or sensing. To see the colours and form, the movement and the life in it all.
And then I go home, to tend the wildy garden I have encouraged and nurtured.
Just for a while now.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Dry Time
The long year of rain that washed the bugs away has been followed by a long season of dry, and few bugs are emerging that I can find, not even the Ticks. I had anticipated something of the sort with my gardening work, lots of seeds sown and plants watered with a compost area for bugs to eat and congregate in. The Possum likes the fruit as well. So it’s not all void of creatures to enjoy, albeit tiny creatures mostly.
Even so, everywhere I go there are maturing well fed spiders. It looks like food a plenty but could be a survival strategy, get a net up to catch what you can while there is any catching to be done. But we’ll see how things unfold.
What is coming can be predicted in the big picture, more or less, but the details are unknowable in their timing and context. That wonderful unknown.
There is nothing wrong with there being so few bugs, it’s just different. Last year they were so plentiful at the same times there are few or none this year.
The weather is very different this year, wetter, colder, windier and dryer at different times. And still nature is what it is behind, unmade, of a greater power than man, waving in time.
The one grace of existence, the unmade shining through.
*
And here are a couple pix anyway. What a little wonder. And no sign of hunger. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
*
Hello Doli
There are a few wells in my area that most never get to see, they are all out of the way of normal traffic. I like to look into these wells, the pull of the mystery I suppose, a little exploration to see what’s there. Some are shallow and are choked with sticks and fallen leaves. Others are deeper but still choked up. So I can’t do what I want to do and toss a pebble in to hear what sound it makes when it hits bottom, there’d be no point.
There is another well but it has long been behind locked gates and I don’t climb like I used to, so I threw a stone over but there was no sound or echo came back. And I’m not so driven any more, focused – you could say, to risk breaking in to what is clearly closed to me.
But I never say never, so you never know … And there might be a well I haven’t found yet.
We have just passed the shortest day here in the southern hemisphere, winter. Not much in the field or garden, especially after such a wet year and cold month. Still, something shows up on an almost daily basis, as long as I look. A Doli fly, 5mm long and skittish.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
11 comments