Garden Angel
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It looked like the beginning of a storm, but it was just a wave.
Of butterflies … transformation writ small.
And no less significant.
© Mark Berkery … Click on the picture for a closer look … and click again.
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Bugged
Green shield bug surveying his domain. No trouble in sight … yet, in an ever changing world.
© Mark Berkery … Click on the picture for a closer look … and click again.
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Hello Darling
Every jumping spider is looking for love. If you look, you’ll see them in the undergrowth waving to their potential mate, and he chasing her down, if she will allow.
Or every spider is being spider, including the love in spider – there is love in all things, without the impediment of psychological divisions into me and mine and this and that, for and against …
Spider doesn’t suffer from the human condition, thanks be to … But neither can they make conscious love, nor love conscious.
© Mark Berkery … Click on the picture for a closer look … and click again.
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Bee Hotel …
This parasitic wasp was noticed sitting on the old Blue Banded Bee hotel, listening … for what may be.
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Listening … to what the surrounding structure and landscape was saying, the masked bee moved in.
Moving from entrance to entrance, each one separate as the BBB are a solitary bee, not hive minded – somewhat individual.
All can be seen to exercise caution, at least testing for recognition to ensure integrity to process – don’t want to finish another’s nest.
Others just testing for a suitable repository for her as yet unborn young. All things intelligent in their own ways, all things driven to reproduce.
The dark cool of the mud brick interior a suitable place for new life to begin its journey out.
… not any more. Made for the Blue Banded Bee a few years ago, this hotel, they only really used it for one.
Last year a few still nested there but this year none so far, but nothing good goes to waste.
This year a swarm? – don’t know if they can be called that as they are not a hive (mind) creature.
But this year the masked bee turned up in numbers, followed by the parasitic wasp.
I will watch as everything runs its course, inside and out … maybe get a few pictures.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Gardening
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If the ‘outer’ is the representation of the ‘inner’, as within so without, then gardening also has a greater reality than it appears in sense.
What could it be, this greater reality of gardening, becomes apparent in the endeavour to see, what it is.
What gets in the way of seeing, that has to be dug into, plucked, discarded and recycled?
And what of the flower, it’s greater reality, such beauty of colour and form?
Weeding works, what you water grows …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Ahoy Skipper
Skipper butterfly that is, sitting proud on the high point of a rotted then dried out lemon. A grand open view before it.
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Not often still enough for a few shots, but this time unperturbed by my giant shadowy presence before it.
The mentioned winter weevil, on the now dried out lemon, laying eggs into or below the skin, youngers still about.
From another angle, for perspective, or just for the entertainment. Amazing that these 1cm long creatures have unique lives.
Some kind of candy beetle, usually found munching a nearby leafy plant, but this time on that old dried mouldy lemon again.
And again, now how did a leaf eater get onto the mouldy old lemon. Somebody carried it perhaps … one of a garden’s mystery.
Tiny bees, not seen by day, much. Then found out of the way, clambering about a branch of the hot chilli bush at night.
Maybe it keeps them warm at night, who knows. But not this one, landed on my hand while shooting the above in the dark.
The first day this butterfly landed on this spot I went to get the camera but it was gone when I got back. Not so this time.
I got back and the skipper was still there, basking in the sun atop a dried out lemon that was used to attract tiny weevils during winter.
The garden is burgeoning, sunlight and greenery and flowers, and all the forms that live in and on.
A cacophony of comings and goings in the stillness of the space it all happens in.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Anty
G’day mate. Howzit going down there?
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Not bad mate, just gettin started on the day.
Whatcha lookin for down there mate?
Ah mate, just stretchin the creases outta me back after a cold night on the leaves.
Well, looking good there mate. Keep it up, eh.
Tryin mate, but someone keeps movin the bloody leaves on me.
Oops, sorry mate. Here ya go, some pollen for breakfast. … Yummm!
It’s first thing in the morning and this little creature was caught out on a cold night while patrolling the orange calendula flowers.
It took a while for him to wake up as the sunlight through the trees spurred him along to get with his morning ablutions.
Before anything that could eat him came along. Not that he would know this in any knowing sort of way, besides instinctively.
How lucky it seems these little creatures are. Not a care in the world, no worries or anxious expectations. No problems.
And all because they don’t think like we do, about themselves. So are free of that burden, or we could call it a baton.
As in a relay race, the human race, a race against time it seems. To flower into a race beyond self reflection, perhaps.
Right on time though, nothing out of place, everything serving the transition.
Pain making sane once more, sort of.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Times Passed
Wolf spider, sitting exposed and undisturbed on an upturned shoe outside the back door.
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As soon as the door was opened she made to enter but that can’t be. Her place is outside.
Frisky little beetle, wouldn’t keep still. Flash of blue, all dressed in green. Places to go, things to do.
Clean those wings, polish those antennae, test those muscles for impending flight. Off to the ball.
Plain green beetle also stepping out, exploring the multi-purpose stick I keep for the occasions.
Stepping out and stepping up … can’t keep a good green beetle down. Off into the wild green growth.
In between seasons here, some flowerings at winters end have been cultivated. But I can’t cultivate the mobile and flying creatures beyond providing food and habitat. Then they come or go by a will not mine.
Something of a reformation really, of constituent elements, viewed through a fresh perspective. Since time as past has passed. Nothing ever really repeats. It only looks that way to the eye jaded by familiarity.
Lucky we have the seasons to remind us, nothing stays the same for long. It takes a brightness of being – without thinking or emotion, the psychological self – to discriminate and appreciate.
So here’s some past come once more, in images taken then, not now. And we’ll see what happens next as the garden reaches into spring.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Forgotten …
… but not lost.
Winter is over and spring is on the way. Time for little ones …
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And this little one is laying more little ones. Into the soft stem site on a fallen pawpaw.
Her unmistakeable actions set her apart, and she is solitary, not another of her kind about.
Intriguing little things, obviously designed with great consideration for functional detail.
And aesthetic appreciation … A designer indeed, if unformed and unnameable. … An intelligence that doesn’t bend to the rational mind.
The first fruit fly of its kind this year, laying into the pawpaw left out for the purpose.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Nature's Place 
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