Nature's Place

Thunder is rumbling overhead, rain is falling gently on the puddles I can see out on the road, and lightning is flickering in the sky. It’s just a passing storm that will hit somewhere else unless it dies first. A storm has its time to die too. Everything is quiet outside my window except for the occasional passing bird.

There have been a lot of Swallows lately. When it’s not raining they are all lined up on the electricity wires at dusk. Preparing for the night ahead, I wonder where they sleep? A lone Swallow just parked himself on the wire, and a few more. Lovely creatures, birds. Beauty, I see it inside.

They’re gathering now in numbers, looking to see what I write about them. Well, they are great flyer’s. I often see them out over the paddock at the back of the house, taking insects on the wing. Their sight must be really sharp and their reaction time super fast.

I’ve been up close to them in another place and their general colouring is a wonderful petrol blue sheen in the black when the light is on them just right. The underbelly is lighter to almost white with an orangey brown spot up near the cheeks.

Messengers of the Gods they have been called and how could it be otherwise. You only have to be able to read the message.

I think the message is always the same and I never tire of hearing it. Eventually it sinks in. ‘Life is good’ is what I hear. What about you?

By the time I went out the swallows had gone but I thought I’d include this photo. Three ladies watching the sunset away in the hills through a lovely yellow misted rain from under heavy clouds.

I went to Mullumbimby today to get my favourite bread. Jordan‘s sourdough. The baker is a friendly young giant and his elves are as good a bunch as I’ve met anywhere. They are always up to their ears in flower and bread with the fans going full pelt to help cool it all down for delivery.

The baker is another kid of messenger, isn’t he, bringing food from the Gods.

Nothing like it, good old fashioned fresh crusty bread and butter. The basis for a good meal in my book.

It was nice to walk around the town, a thriving place but with a quietness about it. The main street was full of parked cars but nobody was in a hurry. And there was time to stop for people to cross the road. It’s one of the good things about the Australia I know, nobody’s in too much of a hurry.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

The road outside is flooded again after the last couple of day’s rain. It has rained heavily, and what had already fallen for a while hadn’t yet run off to the sea as the land around here just soaks it up. And the coastal swampland/forest retains the water so it takes less rain to cause the same flooding.

I went to have a look and found a lot of caterpillars had been washed down this way. Many will have been drowned and many eaten by the birds, but that’s life. The birds are full and the farmers are pleased.

Down on the beach today there was only one other human, and he was running. He waved and smiled, we said hello.

Thunder rose from the surf, wild and windy it was. I’m sure I could hear the sand, megatons of it, being moved around by the sea by the shore. A gritty sound, like sand is. Dark clouds overhead, raining once in a while. Enough to keep most folk home it seems.

I just needed to get out. I’ve been working overtime on the blog site and it’s coming along nicely. Everything is finding its place and I do the next thing when I come to it.

Pictures are next, but not today. I’m still familiarizing myself with the software and how to do what I want without deleting anything. Finding out what can be done so it can be determined what I do.

Whenever I go to the beach, or anywhere near it, I always see these small white crabs disappearing down their holes. They always see me before I see them it seems. There are thousands of them and I have only seen the smallest of them in the open, a few centimeters across, until today.

There’s a little walkway from the road through the bush to the beach. It’s why I go to this particular spot, it’s very pleasant walking this track though it’s only half a kilometer long. There used to be a picnic area here but too many people used it for free camping so it was closed to cars.

The tables are still there and there is still a large cleared area that is open to the sky. And all around there are holes in the sandy ground where the little crabs live. The holes are all sizes, depending on the size of the crab. A small crab isn’t going to dig a large hole is he?

There is a large bushy area that I have discovered houses all sorts of insects. It’s a mecca for them, or it’s just relatively easy to see them here. There was the little Tiger Bug. And a new grasshopper I nearly missed, he blends in so well. Then this dragonfly flew in and around the place and finally settled down a few feet from me. The less I try to find them the more they sit for me.

What lovely and amazing creatures, the short broad Tiger Bug with its neat plump shape and bright colour. The hopper, disguised in plain view as the end of an eaten bunch of leaves, when I first saw it.

And that incredible dragonfly, this one could swivel its head, robot like, just like all the others of his kind I’ve seen close up. And look at those wrap around eyes, not much escapes his view at all.

When I finished taking these pix I turned towards the beach and as I moved I saw white, rapidly shifting on the ground near my feet. I stopped and looking down I saw the biggest white crab I’ve seen around here. They are all males today for some reason.

He quickly adopted that ‘don’t come near me or else’ posture some small creatures display when they feel threatened. Probably it works with the other predators around here to some degree, but I reckon their best bet is to run down a hole. Which is probably why they are so good at it.

Every natural creature naturally does what’s best for it. And everyone gets caught out some time. I caught him again looking like he thinks I can’t see him behind the grass.

Not much doing? It only feels that way to the unexcited mind.

These naturally uninhibited beings make me laugh sometimes.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Except for the rain it is very quiet at home today. The roar of the water hitting the roof overwhelms every other sound. Probably because the roof is of a thin coated metal, like corrugated iron. The sight of the rain falling on the already soaked earth. A pleasant cacophony of sound and vision, to me.

I’ve been sorting my pictures, just deleting what is no good. One of the good things about digital camera’s is I can take as many shots of a subject as I like or can get. Since they upload to the computer I don’t have to pay for expensive film to see them. That’s a great advantage over how it used to be. I once had a good camera but I didn’t use it because it was so expensive to see what I captured on film.

The downside is there are now a heap of pictures to view and keep and file, or delete. It’s always the way isn’t it, where there’s an up there’s a down. And we manage. I’ve just downloaded Picassa and it looks very good but only time will tell. So far I have found the old Windows picture viewer best for deleting as I go. Some programs are just not well enough thought out, you’d think the people who design them don’t actually use them.

The water has settled on the lawn outside the window and I can see the drops that fall from the trees hitting the surface. The rain is still falling as well, only more lightly now. It’s lovely to see the gentle disturbances by the rain of the pools, on the surface of my mind. Calming and relaxing of any tension.

Relaxation is the key to enjoyment, without it any pleasure will bring a corresponding displeasure. An excitation of the psyche reverberates in the mind and returns like the ripples on the pool of water. Relaxation filters the harsh edges of the rippling until there is only a simple pleasure in being, no problem.

It’s the way the cats are most of the time, if they haven’t been mistreated by man. Just lazing about, as cats do, enjoying the simplicity of being. Or being the simplicity of cat.

We can learn a lot by observing the nature and creatures around us. They remind me of places inside I may have forgotten for a while, aspects of me, my own real nature.

T’is enlightening to see.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

I have company today. As I sit here typing this in I am visited by a small spider about half a centimeter long. It is a vitally alive creature, vigorous in its manner.

If I approach it with a finger it stops suddenly still, alert. And if I blow on it gently it digs in and grips the plastic table top with an appearance of grim determination. When I get close enough to be an immediate danger to it the little fellow jumps about four or five centimeters away from me. If I blow him away into the forest of things on the table he just comes back, to go where no spider has gone before perhaps.

He moves swiftly across the terrain of my work table as if he knows exactly where he’s going. Maybe he does, maybe he knows the table top well. But I haven’t seen him around here before.

He’s searching for food and I reckon with all the bites I’ve been getting lately sitting at the computer at night there should be plenty around. He only has to find it.

Good luck to him. I could do with a few more spiders actively seeking out the little biters.

Today I signed up for a blog with WordPress.com. I have been coming to this for some time but the way I am is to know the field. I have to satisfy myself it is the right course of action. The only way for me to do that is to find out all about the business of blogging, the various means of realising a blog, and the various options within those means. In other words I found out exactly what is available and exactly what I want. And it is a job doing so.

Today I came to the point where I had enough of the looking. There was no more reservation as to what platform to use, or the means by which I would have it online. Now I know what I can do with it and expect from it, more or less. It is really very simple once the homework is done. The homework is the difficult part, it always was.

I am pleased. Really pleased. All the work has borne fruit in that I am completely at ease with what I have done. No more reservation is no more stress. There is always some tension involved when doing something new.

There is the lovely smell of fresh cut grass in the air tonight. Yes, I mowed the lawn again. If you can call it a lawn, it’s about an acre of grass. And I use a push mower. It’s another kind of job. The rain has been regular, almost every day for nearly six weeks. Not always a lot of rain, but regular. It’s been sunny more often than not the last few days.

The conditions are perfect for growing grass, the grass you mow. It will be some time before the rain stops and the grass stops growing, late Autumn, early Winter maybe. In Australia, where I am, the seasons are reversed to the northern hemisphere.

Things are almost back to normal with the mozzies, at least around the house during the day. I can go for short walks at night too without being eaten. It’s the midges turn now. Ha! Little black biters. I just have to plan around the not so pleasant nature here. And it’s Cane Toad season again, no problem, must have frozen twenty in the last few days.

I went for a walk down by the beach this afternoon. Along a track about a hundred metres inland and running parallel to the beach, behind the dunes. A little way in from the road I saw a few unusual birds in the trees and flying about, there was a lovely darkness about them, an elegant mischief. They didn’t stay still long enough for me to photograph them but I got something else that is probably quite rare.

Have you ever noticed how a bird will dump any excess weight before taking flight? It’s almost universal in my experience a bird will shit just before or after takeoff. I’ve seen every kind of bird do it. Today was no exception, the exception was that I caught it on camera. That pellet you can see falling beneath the bird could not be anything else. It was perched on the highest point around, nothing above it. Just after this shot was taken she took to the air and was gone. That’s the way to start any journey, dump the excess baggage.

The birds around here are too fast for me to keep up with, they eat out all the time and don’t let people close at all. There is an abundance of food for them around here after the rains. Maybe I’ll put up a feeder for the winter, and some water, maybe some birds will come my way then. I’ll see.

A bit further on I came to a clearing in the bush and trees between me and the beach. There was only very low ground cover and one dead tree reaching bony fingers to the sky about forty metres away. On these bare branches there were two eagles perched close together.

I stopped dead in my tracks but I was too late, one of them had seen me and was already lifting off the branch. The other one looked around to see what had caused the first to take flight. He didn’t see me at first, maybe because I didn’t move. But then he must have recognised the silhouette and immediately followed the first into the air.

I hadn’t even turned the camera on yet. I let it go and walked on for a while until I came to a track running left down to the beach. It was nice to walk in the cool water with the waves washing in right up to the dunes. There was a fisherman on the beach a long way ahead and I saw one of the eagles along the line of vegetation, never venturing far from the cover of the bush.

Every now and then I would see it in the distance swooping out to the waters edge to pick up something, food no doubt. And then fly back in to cover. I’ve seen the eagles around here catching fairly big fish from the rivers, but I don’t know if they will dive into the sea, but why not? As I approached him, eyeing him up for a shot (of the camera), he took to the air and came to rest further on down the beach.

So next time I approached him I avoided looking at him directly, I looked out to sea while seeing him with my peripheral vision. That worked, I got close enough to snap him as he stood at the edge of the sand, apparently unconcerned this time. I think looking too intently and directly probably made him uneasy. I just managed to get him in the frame as he took off again, a bit of a blur but the outline is dramatic.

When I got home I started going through what I can and can’t do with the blog. It’s going to take me some time to get to know this amazing publishing tool.

Isn’t it incredible it is possible to publish to a worldwide audience of millions on the net, and for free! All that is necessary is to have something of real value to offer. And someone to read it.

Truly amazing.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

I noticed it a few days ago but I didn’t mention it, maybe because I didn’t really believe it. There are a few spots along the coast near where I live where I frequently go. One of them I enjoy because there is a fair walk from the road where I have to park the car, and the walk is through coastal bushland where wallaby’s and birds and goanna live. Even though there are many farms around here and it is often used by people passing through it is still wild in many ways.

Today I took a pic of another kind of wildness I didn’t expect to find here. Just a few metres in from the road, in plain view of anyone walking this way, was a small bush with women’s bra’s draped over it like tinsel on a Christmas tree. That’s what it was, some sex obsessed man’s present to himself that no doubt served to quell some emotional demand in him. The demand for sexual gratification.

All men have it, this demand, it’s what drives the reproduction of the species. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what all animal bodies do. But man, through thinking about his sexuality, has emotionalised and complicated the matter out of all proportion.

The fact is all bodies mate in some way or other. Sex is sex and serves the species. But man has realised the need for love but he doesn’t know how to find it, so he gets confused about sex.

Poor man.

I went on in towards the beach and saw some shrubbery a little past the narrow trail to the sand and I thought I’d investigate. There were a few different kinds of grasshopper amongst the foliage and a few different insects. I took a load of photo’s and got a few good shots, I always try a few different settings and modes to learn what works, where and when. A delicate hopper, a two faced spider, and a tiger bug.

I went on in to the beach and it was lovely. There was nobody there for miles in both directions and the waves were crashing with that incessant roar that is always here by the ocean. I walked a while along the edge of the water, sometimes getting my feet and legs wet. Nice, cool water. Along the length of the beach I could see flotsam, loads of driftwood and some rubbish from some far away place.

The driftwood was as big as trees at times, some so big they had sunk into the sand and only the main trunk and some branches sticking up here and there. I wonder where all the driftwood came from, somewhere up or down the coast maybe? or some far off land where there had been a mighty storm. I don’t know, I couldn’t tell the kind of wood. We have had coconuts along here so it’s not unthinkable the trees came from another land. It could even be from that tsunami so many months ago.

The clouds were multiform and lovely and soft in a blue sky. And the white of the foam on the breaking waves was easy on the eye.

When I turned around I came back by the softer sand. I often do this for the exercise. To walk in the soft sand is demanding of a full range of movement of the legs and hips that helps strengthen and mobilise the hips and lower spine. The muscles from the calf to the tip of the toes are all vigorously engaged. It’s good for the body basically.

I am relatively new to photography, I’m sure I have mentioned it before. There were a few puddles of water on the trail where it collects after the rain. The birds know about these puddles and like to bathe in them when nobody is around. I’ve seen them before. I waited about five metres away for one to go to the water but as soon as I stopped so did they. It’s like that around here, the creatures are very shy.

But I waited anyway and it paid off. Splash, one bird dipped in for a quick bath but was gone before I even saw it clearly. Then another. So I stood there with the camera pointed at the spot I thought would be best and set the pre-focus so all I had to do was complete the press of the shutter button.

I was looking at the lcd screen on the back of the camera for the bird to drop into the water and as soon as It did I pressed the button. And splash is all I got, it was just too quick for me. I took another one and splash is all I got again. It was getting dark and the mozzies were coming out so I went home.

This amazing beast, monster moth, was at the doorway when I got back.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Even with the air conditioning on the car is hot here in Australia‘s summer. Especially after going for a walk in the bush. The power windows stopped working last week and I couldn’t find the fault myself. It is inconvenient and I do prefer to drive with the windows down. But I just have to accept what can’t be changed, for now.

Today the mechanics I have met since moving to N. E. NSW looked at it for me. It could have cost a lot but I can’t live without working windows in the car. Peter, one of the partners, spent ten minutes on it and it was working again. Mark, the origional owner of the business only charged me ten dollars. Isn’t that amazing? That’s a rhetorical question. It is amazing.

Mechanics are notorious for taking advantage of the lack of mechanical know – how of the man on the street but these guys are the best. Good old fashioned service without the rush, and pleasantly communicative. And honest, they do what needs to be done and you pay an honest rate for it.

If you are ever in this neck of the woods and need a mechanic you will find them just outside the village of Burringbar, north of Byron on the old Highway One to Murwillumbah. Murnane is the name and you’ll find them in the phone book, or if you’re in the area just ask someone.

It’s good to be treated right and I thought I’d pass it on. I have met other gentleman mechanics but not since I started writing this blog and this blog is about my experience here and now.

After I left Murnane’s, with my windows working, I went to the Mooball N. P. for a walk. More like a climb really, it’s very steep hill country. But it is relatively unknown and there’s a certain freedom in being alone in a place few people go to. I enjoy it.

I drove around a bend and saw a Goanna run for the trees in the distance, about a hundred metres. You have to keep an eye out for the creatures if you want to see them in the wild. I saw where it went and made a mental note and stopped about where it ran from the road. I got out of the car and there it was, a small Goanna, about two and a half foot long from nose to tail tip.

I got the camera out and got a couple snaps of this shy creature as it peered from around the trunk of the tree it was climbing to escape from me. A slender quiet thing flicking its tongue to see what I taste like. It may know me a little if ever we meet again, and maybe won’t run away so quickly. It didn’t run too far until I moved around the tree for a better shot. It might have felt I was trying to flank it. And I was but only to take its picture, but it didn’t know that. ( P1000611(1).jpg )

I went for a walk then and came across a few small creatures. A few spiders in their webs and a few grasshoppers. Magnificent creatures in themselves the way they are structured for what they do. And they are designed to survive. The magnificent webs of silver and golden thread that house and feed the spider. And the powerful legs and secondary wings that enable the grasshopper to get away, some of them have suits of thorn so if any frog got one in its mouth it would soon spit it out.

It was nice and quiet on the trails in this place. Nothing to name or think about except nature. But most of the time just seeing what is there, the leaves of a myriad different plants and fallen things. And smelling the air, and feeling the cool breeze up in the hills. That’s nice.

On the way home I stopped at an old spot of mine on the top of a hill that was probably the site of a house before it became a national park. I have stopped here many times and got a few good pix but today was special.

I was in a hollow looking where some old palm trees had been dumped a long time ago. It’s an area that I visit since I found some beautiful yellow fungus there before I had the new camera. The old one couldn’t focus on it. I have also seen a big hornet scouting the place at another time, moving slowly and deliberately from place to place looking for I don’t know what. Food, shelter, nest site. The same things people look for I reckon.

Today I met Golden Boy and he posed for me for a long time, and I thanked him for that. It is a privilege to get close to the wild creatures and I was grateful for it. This fellow was magnificent, a streamlined body with four wings and the muscle to control them that gave him exquisite control in flight. An efficient hunting machine that told its predators ‘I don’t taste good’ with its yellow and black colouring. ( P1000660.jpg + P1000624.jpg)

He had such control in flight he could take his prey on the wing. I saw him take a small insect from the air with ease, as if harvesting what is naturally and rightfully his. He is a predator after all. Cruising his territory with an air of invincibility. Poised to respond to the slightest significant signal.

Such beauty of form and function was unsurpassed in my view today. You should see that head swivel on its ‘neck’ and focus and lock when something I can’t see attracts his attention. It’s robotic. Simply a beautiful, deliberate, instinctively intelligent hunting machine.

Sylvan of this hollow in the top of a mountain. A privilege to meet.

Today was an adventure. I went where nobody goes. Into the swamp called Billinudgel NR. There wasn’t a single sign anybody has been this way since the rain started. It seems so long ago. Even then hardly anyone goes there.

I am honoured. To go where nobody goes.

I saw sign of wallaby, cow and snake. They were the only tracks in the sandy trails that I could discern. There were other creatures too, the spiders and dragonfly’s and many unseen things moving in the water. Too deep to pass in places.

Oh, and a few bees. And of course the mozzies.

I have been waiting for the opportunity to go back to see what became of the spider and the wasp that made their homes on the tall reedy grass, and today it happened.

I didn’t plan to go, I just went on the way back from somewhere else. I could because I had my new gum boots in the back of the car. I am pleased they have been useful at least once.

It was overcast today with the occasional ray of sunshine and the trails were still under yellow brown water, but not as bad as a week ago. The rain has been easing lately and many creatures are venturing out again.

The early trails were easy to navigate, the water was not very deep to start with. The ones deeper in were another matter. I was in water up to within two inches of the rim of my new gum boots in places.

But it was ok, I used my walking stick to test the depth before I would put my foot down and I got through. Slowly but surely.

I got through to the place where I first saw the spider and the wasp living on the reeds over two weeks ago. See Wily Little Spider and Little Lady Wasp (no Pictures uploaded yet). It was under a foot of water in places but seemed well protected from the worst of the storms we’ve been having.

I went to where I thought the wasp nest was and found one.

It is in the same general area, within a metre or two, but this one has three wasps on it and it looks like it has been built up, if it’s the same one.

There are more chambers to one side of what could be the old nest; it has the same general size and shape if you take away the new chambers.

Maybe they are not complete nomads, maybe the first nest, if it survives, is used by new arrivals looking for a safe place for their young.

How safer than one that has survived the storms? Anyway, it was good to see them.

You wouldn’t think it possible but I found the spider’s nest too. Only there was no spider in it. It took a while though because things had definitely changed here.

You can see it’s the same one. I rotated this pic so it has the same orientation as the first pic I took of it over two weeks ago.

It was hanging over and upside down because some insect had eaten away one side of the reed causing it to weaken and fall over. The structure no longer able to support the weight of the seed cluster above.

I suspect the spider evacuated when the house fell down and probably lives nearby in another cosy web. Or it is long dead, who knows?

On the way back I checked for Big Orb and there she was, still sitting in her web oblivious to the passage of time. Just being spidergirl.

What a beauty. It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen her and she hasn’t changed a bit.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Today is the last day of my life so far. It could be the last day altogether. Then what? Nothing? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t mind not knowing. I’ll find out soon enough.

Surrounded by mozzies, they are at the windows and the doors. They are anywhere it is cool and damp, that way they live a little longer to do what they have to do and make more mozzies.

But if it’s the last day there will be no more mozzies. If there are more mozzies it’s not the last day.

There are plenty of mozzies to make more.

Maybe it’s not the last day at all.

Maybe it’s just today.

What’s the Rosella got to do with it?

Everything!

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery