Horse Flys …
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She came in through the front door … and got herself trapped against the fly screen.
She was just following the light, not knowing to turn back into the darkness of the shaded room to get free.
She doesn’t do any knowing in that sense, being an entirely instinctive creature – this one wasn’t the exception.
So I got a glass from the kitchen and caught her up in it for transporting to the verandah.
She seemed to enjoy being out in the air, though I’m sure she didn’t know what had happened.
It took a while for her to find her feet again, don’t know how long she was trapped.
And so I left her, being what she is, to find her way once more in the wide world.
Then she took to the air … as all good flies do.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Time Flys
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Smiley …
A few caterpillar shots, eating a gum tree in the local bush.
A very unusual looking creature. No idea what they turn into.
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Do you ever stand outside at night in a dark place and look up at the stars.
See them in the blackness without resting on any one for long.
No naming or counting, just the sense of them.
In a vast black space. Balm to mind.
Wonderful …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Blue Banded Bee
Blue Banded Bee asleep gripping a dead twig of the star jasmine on the fence. Under cover from the rain.
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A female, by the four bands, not five, about two metres from the mud brick house cast for her early in the year.
And on the other side of the house – two youngsters in tandem on a flower stem, under the moon. No blue bands yet …
Flash disturbed the one behind, who began to buzz and struggle, as if agitated dreaming. So I backed off …
With all the rain and wind the past couple weeks these little creatures are struggling. But not suffering emotionally, they don’t do that.
They are cognisant of the effort and the hunger, are it, but not a single thought is wasted on it. And it can’t be changed.
The sun will shine again … the flowers will bloom … mud brick homes are available.
Everything changes in time …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Friday …
Just the one sleeping on a tendril hanging from the fern above the Orange Tail Resin Bee hotel.
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S/he started to buzz and appeared irritated with flash so I pulled back for it to withdraw to darkness once more.
Ok, just one more … from front and below, bee hotel in background. Everybody asleep … for now.
The Blue Banded Bee is much about the garden through the day. Less visible at night though.
The flash can waken them and they fly to the nearest light, not good for BBB. So only a few shots for now.
Maybe when it gets colder and they are more sluggish, and I can find them, I’ll get some more.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Born Again … Again
I came upon this Orb Weaver one night, molting. Hanging upside-down from a few strands of silk.
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Gravity helps him exit the old body, too small now. And helps his new body stretch to its full extent.
Swaying and turning in the night breeze, it took a while to get free of the old. No doubt some effort is involved.
Stretching out to aid the new, exposed to every danger … but not a predator in sight. Safe on a silken thread.
A crop, to show his eating gear. Fangs above the palps, and above that a couple rows of black cutters.
After a while hanging down he curled up, clenching his new body. A little natural spider yoga preps it for action.
Not yet ready to start his new life. Exercises need repetition, duration and timing for optimal effect.
Brand new spider body … functioning perfectly … almost ready for life on the wire … how many more to go, bodies.
It’s a theatre, a play, a part, then shuffle off the stage … to a new body, and newer still, until the last and then no more …
… to be born, or die, into a world of light and beauty. But who’s to tell, unless you see …
Free? Not yet, old shell gone now but still some living to do. Hanging in there … for what may be.
And once he’s done here, upside down, he turns around and back he goes from whence he came, into the black night.
It takes a spider a long time to be born again. And then there’s no guarantee …
But guarantee would be a form of death … to any self-respecting spider.
Then again, life’s one guarantee to every form is death.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Leap Of …
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… maybe, maybe not.
Who knows what’s in a spiders mind.
Not personalised thinking, that’s for sure …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Assassin …
What’s this coming up the branch, a new kind of bug, a mutant … or is it an assassin bug holding on to dinner.
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She sees me and does an about-turn. But then she can’t see me past her package and I no longer exist in her small world. Until …
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… I get around the other side. But she soon settles down, me being no apparent threat. Unwilling to relinquish her catch.
Up close you can just see how she uses her lance/proboscis/stabber to pierce and hold onto her prey.
And later that day, after her meal, she’s wandering a flower spike in the garden and positioning herself for the next days hunting. … But… what’s that in the background? It looks like a face but it’s a spider sitting in its web.
If there’s anything can discourage an assassin bug it’s this spider, an orb weaver. But they never meet this dark night. Who knows what may be the next …
… all grown up, what the Assassin Baby eventually develops into.
It has been an unusual year in many respects but the point here is there has been very few small creatures in the garden.
I can think of a number of reasons – combinations of rain, sun, birds, etc – but at summer’s end the ‘last man standing’ is the assassin bug.
So, I present to you the winner of this years trophy … well, thank god – whatever that is – insects don’t have personalities.
And every body dies eventually.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Assassin Baby …
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On the flowers, he knows where to go for a bite to eat.
At one point he was eager to get on my finger … didn’t fancy testing his deadly kiss.
Though the pain, as sensation, could be used to separate from the mind that would attach to it.
Sensation is distinct from thought and emotion.
And thinking is stopped before it begins …
… where it arises, from the self.
In the belly, not in the head.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Bugs … Bugs … Bugs
Young Assassin Bug, prowling the Straw-Flowers at night. Perhaps too hungry to give it my finger to climb on.
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Found on a tree in the local bush, this long legged and long tongue fly. Amazing flyer … or my eyes just got old.
Fire-tail Bee, rescued from the water I leave out for the small creatures. Sitting on a drying lemon staked in the garden.
Beetle on the butterfly bush, Wedge or Monk – take your pick. They do wake up some time …
Female Lynx spider on the butterfly bush, waiting for her dinner to arrive. Everybody’s got to eat, and she eats for the many.
Got these seeds that turned into huge sunflowers but nothing visited them, maybe it is a poisonous variety, if there is such a thing. Then I saw this Weevil, but it was dead. Hmmm …
Spider under the sunflower. They seem to do a lot of waiting. Lucky they don’t think or they might get impatient.
Moth, around two and a half inches long. Huge … Didn’t want to perform for the camera, I let it be …
Robber Fly at rest, assassins of another kind, they usually capture mid air and strike behind the head. Efficient aerial killer.
Not much to say this week … Focussing inside …
Starting with sensation, while letting pass what forms …
… eventually resolves to a sense of space or good inside – no form.
It can be difficult at times, the pull of mind to express and identify …
But there is no more worthy endeavour, with a value beyond what can be reasoned.
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Being no thing, not even the negation of things.
No longer letting go what appears in inner space …
… but letting go the idea there is anything to let go.
More or less, perfectly.
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And today, contrary to popular opinion, no-thing really matters.
Or, no-thing is more real before it matters. Hmm …
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Nothing needs realising. The one and the many melt into the other …
… and stillness is the way. Now, there’s peace of mind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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