Ready or Not …
… Keep your place or you’ll be caught! It was a game we played as kids, hide and seek if I remember right. And I went on playing it for decades after, in one form or another.
Now I don’t play any more, because I’m not so inclined, and you’ll have to go back and close your eyes to count some more. That’s what the seeker used to do, count up to a number and shout out – Ready or Not …
Have you ever seen any bugs play this game? Of course it’s not the same, they don’t count, not like us anyway. But they do play, why not. Why would a living creature, however small, be excluded from play.
Just look at the design, the colours. So much ingenuity and no play, absurd. And when they are in action it can plainly be seen they enjoy life.
That’s what I see, it’s the way it is, until it is some other way.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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A Guest in the House
I can’t remember what I was doing now, but I looked up at something moving in the corner of my eye and, sensing me, it stopped dead in its tracks. A little Gecko had come in from the unceasing rainfall and was making his way across my ceiling. Love the way they can walk upside down on the ceiling, with that waggling gait.
A small fellow, about the same size as the one in The Kill. This one had a different outcome though, in the short term anyway, that I know of.
I thought this little fellow would get lost and die in my place, with nothing or very little to eat, so I trapped him. I got a glass mixing bowl from the kitchen and just placed it on the Gecko on the ceiling, careful not to pinch him between the hard glass rim and the flat plasterboard. I then slipped a piece of cardboard between the bowls rim and the ceiling until he jumped down into the glass and I had him.
Then I brought him outside and let him go on a table I use for shots of creatures from around the house that allow me. He dashed this way and that but wasn’t frightened of me when I put a hand out to keep him from running away. And I was delighted he hung around for a little while, with that little encouragement from me.
Of course he was wary of me, a strange giant to his little eye. But after a while he came to sit on my finger once and allowed me to touch him before he darted away.
What a long tongue he’s got. And a lovely golden colour. Little beauty, to me.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
The Kill
A lot of Gecko’s live in this old wooden two storey Queenslander. I often see them at the outside light at night and as soon as they see me they run and hide. They will attack and eat anything that flutters on a window or under the light and run and hide from anything bigger than they are – sound survival tactic, usually.
This young Gecko was stationary as I passed and stopped to look. Moments later it was scuttling across the wall towards a corner it could disappear behind. I usually just watch them go but this time I thought I’d see if I could catch one to get a better look.
I was reaching out to cup it in one hand before it disappeared around the corner of the wall when a huge, four inch leg span, Huntsman came around that same corner at lightning speed and snatched the Gecko’s life with a single bite.
The blink of an eye and it was almost over for the Gecko. The Huntsman was taking no chance of losing its catch, holding on tight and then biting closer to the head before silently slinking away with its meal, glistening venom cascading over one of its prey’s eyes.
They had never heard of Christmas. Or …. ?
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Wild Things
Gecko. Lives around the house and eats everything in sight or flight around the light at night. It rhymes.
Huntsman. Found under the peeling bark of a tree in the nearby forest/NR. Known as the giant crab spider, young and fast.
Wasp. (can’t remember name now) Was depositing eggs? in rotten old branch in same NR when the ant came to investigate.
Lynx Spider. Waiting on some wild growing Jasmine, such a sweet smell. You have to be careful smelling the flowers.
Honey Bee. Last of the day and I saw this one moving on the ground. It was weak, trying to scramble up on a leaf with its wings outstretched. Death wasn’t far off.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Gecko. Lives around the house and eats everything in sight or flight around the light at night. It rhymes.
Huntsman. Found under the peeling bark of a tree in the nearby forest/NR. Known as the giant crab spider, young and fast.
Wasp. (can’t remember name now) Was depositing eggs? in rotten old branch in same NR when the ant came to investigate.
Lynx Spider. Waiting on some wild growing Jasmine, such a sweet smell. You have to be careful smelling the flowers.
Honey Bee. Last of the day and I saw this one moving on the ground. It was weak, trying to scramble up on a leaf with its wings outstretched. Death wasn’t far off.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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