Plague Warrior
Sitting still a while, scoping out her territory. Danger as well as opportunity presents.
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Her favourite diet is ant, large black ones that climb endlessly up and down the power pole.
Alert to the shading of her by my rig, she inspects it from afar – afar to a 1cm long jumping spider.
She lives much of her life in the open on a 10m tall pole that was once a tree, in sunshine or shade.
Wherever the best chance of survival presents, there she’ll be. Chasing down her food, avoiding trouble as she can.
On the thick green power pole by the water treatment plant a warrior does live.
Her daily habit is to patrol up and down, for big ants to eat, while avoiding the tiny ones.
The big ants can be bitten but the small evade her and are tenacious when they get a grip.
She could see the tiny ones coming, in their rapid and erratic apparently aimless runaround.
And was careful to avoid them, jumping this way and that in her effort to stay ahead of trouble.
Trouble, what comes to everybody some time until we learn its nature and get ahead of it.
The natural things have advantage, they don’t confuse the fact with thinking or emotion.
Spiders don’t do it (think) instinctively, never consciously.
And the impossible is always a possibility.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Face 2 Face
Here’s looking back at ya.
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And down on ya.
From the side of ya.
And up at ya. … Ya is good. … Ya …
The next day I found the stick insect clinging to a beam under the verandah roof.
It was still and didn’t object when I brought it down to return it to different trees.
Where big geckos hang out at night probably wasn’t the best place for sticky.
And a few shots on the way, can’t ignore opportunities coming into autumn.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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The Face …
She was about 8 inches long so I settled for the most intelligent aspect of any creature, the face.
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In the face can be found the primary characteristics of any being. Seeing them/it is the job.
And the job is to negate what gets in the way of seeing what is, the movie pictures of mind.
I was at the waterfront to see the stars while enjoying a walk in the night and was about to leave when a giant stick insect from the trees on the hill above landed on my windscreen.
I didn’t want it to die in the car park so in order to protect it and get a few shots I drove it home, carefully so as not to dislodge it, slowly as it hung on in the wind.
When I got home I loosened it from its grip on the wiper blade and put it on the roof of the car where it wandered a while before I handed it off to a tree.
It was happy to climb on the green, most creatures are happy to get back to their nature.
Maybe because there’s no problem in nature, only in the thinking mind.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Weevil Days …
At rest, unworried by the missing lower rear leg. Weevil being what weevil does.
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Still and unmoved by the giant nearby. A perfect opportunity to become acquainted.
Up on the stick he became more lively, familiar sense of wood underfoot, antennae outstretched alert.
For whatever weevil might find. A tangle of dried roots at the end of a stick. That led back to the green.
Weevil on the wheelybin lid – yellow for recyclables, just sitting there, unaware of the swirl of the world beyond.
So I got a stick and encouraged it to climb on. It obliged, and after a short journey and a few shots I sent it into a nearby tree.
Happy it seemed to be on the green again, it lifted those long legs and disappeared into the shimmering sense of nature.
No problem … on his little weevil mind.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Life Goes On …
Green Shield Bug with a drop of water from the hose, waiting out the shower.
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Variations on the angle of approach, for background/contrast and eye level contact.
Pluck a leaf and raise ‘im up. Alarms the bug for a moment, enough to send it into hiding.
But not for long … turn the leaf over and there it is, exposed and hesitant – perceiving no danger.
Way to go … the upside down view of the world. Sometimes I think everything needs upending, for a fresher view.
A green shield bug at the end of summer, loitering on the greenery. Hasn’t yet been moved to insert that needle mouth into a vein for the available nourishment.
But it will … everything lives off something else. Until it in turn dies and feeds another form, ever burgeoning, ad infinitum.
The life behind unmoving …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Black Wasp
Already debilitated but job not done yet. Wasp resumes work on dismembering spider.
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Powerful and efficient butcher, the wasp takes no chances and makes no mistakes.
Resumes her butchery in a forceful manner, expressive of her no-nonsense ways.
She inspects spider to maintain methodology, removing those long and – could be – deadly legs.
Using her wings now to increase traction on the object of her desire. Time is of the essence.
Spiders legs can often regrow, but not this time … Severing another leg to make flying easier.
Change of position, having a go at the deadly mandibles, which may still be a threat – if only to her young.
Job almost done, package nearly ready, she prepares to carry spider away to her home in the BBB’s nest.
Spider legs strewn about. Package almost ready to fly. One last go at those venom packed mandibles.
I was pottering around the house and saw this Huntsman limping along the ground.
Limping because some legs were missing and it couldn’t run as Huntsmen do so well.
Limping out into open space when ordinarily it would be in the opposite direction, under cover.
So, thinking it might be confused (for some reason), I gave it a nudge towards the undergrowth.
But it wasn’t having it, kept on heading out into open space and nothing I could do about it.
Then the black wasp with yellow antennae showed up and attacked the spider with a will.
It had already been working on it, spider confused by venom but not yet subdued.
So she, the wasp, stung the spider again, and again, and proceeded to dismember it.
To carry it away to her nest at the edge of the garden, to feed her young.
What they do, we do … our existential nature.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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I Spy
As I was passing the Blue Banded Bee hotel I saw this on the wooden base below. A dead fly with no ants in attendance. And knew from experience what it signified.
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Means there was nothing of it left to eat, or the ants surely would … A jumping spider I saw the day before had already extracted any nourishment, here with a new meal.
Change the approach angle slightly, keeping spider eyes the centre of attention, to get more of the scene in focus. You never know what you’ve got until it’s done.
Another angle, another opportunity to investigate spider eating fly. The small hole, about 4mm diameter, probably home to something else.
After the spider was done s/he was energetic enough to go in search of new pastures, probably looking for a mate. As all things do in time, separate and apart. … Such is life, or living.
I keep an eye on the Blue Banded Bee hotels in case of invasion by undesirables, like the fly.
But who’s to say the fly is not good for the ecology of the BBB’s nest site. Not me …
So I largely leave them be, or chase them off if I think they are too many for comfort.
They harass the BBB’s as they approach the nest and I’m not sure what they are up to.
Parasitising the BBB, or playing tag, or who knows … I sometimes intervene.
The fly is subject to a higher authority.
Aren’t we all …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Horseshoe Colour
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The horseshoe beetle living its life out on the sweet potatoe leaves. With some nasturtium and other for wallpaper.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Invisibility …
A kind of shield bug, a pair mating on a tree trunk in the garden.
… helps when you walk slowly around the trunk of a tree and the birds are about, if you want to survive.
These creatures look like they’ve been surviving since the dinosaurs.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
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Nature's Place 
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