Wild Fly
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Getting all acrobatic about personal grooming. These tiny creatures are as clean as any human.
Another blast from the past, from the wilds of Wooyung by the beach – gone again before this gets published on schedule, no internet here.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Hunter
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If anything looks different this week it might be because I am using a different computer, having lost access to my usual via lightning strike.
These spider shots are from another time. His, or her, hunting ground was a dried out stem. The fly didn’t stand a chance once in range.
Such is life, you never know what’s coming over the horizon. Careful with that spidey mate.
It pays to be prepared … for whatever may be, that it be right.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Neon Beeauty
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There isn’t much insect activity in the garden after a hot and dry summer and recent unseasonal heatwave.
The native bee’s nests are devoid of activity. Because they know, without thinking, it’s not a good time to be born right now.
The heat has seriously stressed the flowering plants the bees need for survival and recovery may be a protracted process. If …
But here are a few that came before, magical little bee of neon blue on black. Little beauty bee.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Neon Once More
At first she looked fine, out of the nest and paused, taking stock of her sensible world.
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As all sensible creatures do. Though her sense of things would be limited by her damaged antennae.
Later in the day it was apparent all was not well, still on the mud brick and now covered in dust.
Maybe from her diggings, laying her eggs, or something to do with her damaged appearance.
She was lively enough, for a while, though behaving as if disoriented, wings spread without flight.
And later still she was flagging, unstable flight attempts and always returning to the mud bring nest.
At one point she re-entered a nest hole and ducked from my attentive lens. Then came out again.
One time she failed to take off and hit the floor. Climbing up a skink jumped her and she lay still.
I picked her up and gave her a little water and she was away again. What happened then who knows, turn your back and the world changes. Life moves on …
Nothing has it good all the time. This Neon Cuckoo Bee was having trouble getting its bearings.
Lost one antennae and, it appears, one mandible. Maybe it was in a fight with a BBB.
Maybe it was born that way. Who knows … there are no guarantees in this life.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Spider Green
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It’s been a while since I found this little dancing jumping spider. Entertaining to watch as she moves around the foliage, staccato gait.
No doubt there are still some in the garden but the summer heat has driven them into the shadows, for some relief.
Not so easily found right now. But summer is almost over and with a little rain comes the forms of life.
Time to wake up from the lazy heat, kick start the old ticker, and see what may be.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Blue Banded Bee …
A Blue Banded Bee from the same bee hotel as the Neon Cuckoo Bee lays. How they roost outside the nest.
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She’s asleep at night which allows me to set the background, somewhat. For the contrast necessary to appreciate it.
There are always limitations, to anything, of what’s at hand for the job. And variables can be employed.
Such as angles and lighting and background – sometimes, and you never know what you’ve got ’til you see it big.
So I look to see what may be, what looks good inside, guided by experience and intuition, and shoot away outside.
Within constraints, of available space in surrounds, close to the ground, under the stairway … pain in the knee …
And then there’s the variables of the medium, composition, saturation, sharpness, etc … that add up to a …
It all goes to making a picture, or image, attractive or not. There are universals to that, I think. What ‘eye’ enjoy.
But the biggest attraction is the creature – from created – itself. No accident of numbers is this little beauty. Though its numbers can be calculated, sort of …
… on a flower, a print of a flower, for background while she sleeps.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Neon Signs …
She waits by the entrance to one Blue Banded Bee nest site …
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… where she will be buzzed until she takes some action.
Sometimes she flys off and around the place …
… only to return to another place she can fulfil her nature.
You can’t blame a bee for being a bee …
… whatever kind of bee she is, opportunistic in this case.
… stealing the efforts of the Blue Banded Bees nature.
But a bee doesn’t steal, knowingly taking from another.
She just sees an opportunity and takes it, by her nature.
No point complaining about what can’t be changed.
Best to let it be, be a bee – ho ho …
Then we might be able to let everything else be.
What a world that would bee.
Signs of life … the Neon Cuckoo Bee has taken to the Blue Banded Bee hotel with a gusto.
At first, early summer, one showed up and the BBB’s were agitated by her presence.
Now there are three or four around the house, two I know of to the BBB hotel.
And the BBB’s do chase them but as a reflex, not unduly concerned.
The ever shifting cohort of flies also seem to have their place.
And though there appears to be the usual struggles of living …
… amongst the small creatures, they don’t get unhappy.
Cause there’s no problem in beeing.
As long as I don’t think.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Giant – ish
The mother of them all, undisturbed in her feeding.
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A bugs eye view, sees the sky through the tree branches above.
There’s an elegance to the form, weighty creatures though.
A youngster, from the wing buds, you wouldn’t know it otherwise.
Manoeuvred for the shot and the background.
Full wings, sun dried grass below. A hot summers day.
Can’t blame them for loving the bush juice in the recent heat.
She breathes through holes in her side, I’m sure she can close.
Angles, gotta take what can be since they can only be examined on the big screen.
Perfection is not an option for pursuit, but may be encountered …
… in its natural being, a bug in an apparently messy nature.
These huge bugs are thirsty for the butterfly bush sap, in competition with the need of the blue banded bees for nectar.
They can have a few heads but when they start on the big stems they are evicted to another part of the garden.
Soon after they are back, such is life. Part of the gardens management, like watering. Doing it as I go.
It pays to be careful of judging what’s good and bad in the garden, the big picture rules.
Practises are subject to change, like the garden itself, and some stay the same.
For the love of it … what else.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Night Hawk
In the shadows beneath the house, nose on top of a bees nest entrance, a Hawk Moth waiting for night.
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It looked like it might be feeding, it has a long proboscis for the purpose, strong enough to pierce.
Unmoved by my presence, I was within a couple of inches, to see the detail of her eye. A gentle little thing.
A feathery coat keeps her cool and dry, probably helps with flight too. Nature is no slouch when it comes to design.
The garden has been drying out with the recent summer heat, in spite of the daily watering.
I was not surprised to see this creature in the afternoon, clinging to the side of the bee hotel.
At first I thought it might be using its proboscis to extract nourishment from a nest it was on.
But no, it was just waiting out the bright of the day in the cool shadows, being nocturnal.
I suspect the garden is a beacon to the small life in range of sensing it.
When so few water theirs it must be positively inviting.
A little green oasis is a blessing.
Of nature, and the life behind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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