Nature's Place

… for something a little different from what has become the usual native bee, or so it seems.

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We had a Paper Wasp nest on the deck that had to be moved because it was just too successful; about twenty strong at its height and only a few metres from the front door, and Karen had been stung when she inadvertently shifted it one recent day. So it had to be moved because I don’t like to destroy any part of the nature, the garden. I enjoy all the nature, not just the pretty or cute bits.

One night, all dressed up for the occasion, because I know they can fly at night even if they prefer not to, I clipped the old fern growth the nest was hanging from and brought it down to the front of the garden, about forty metres away, where I had prepared a post to place it in where they would have to work harder to maintain its success rate, by at least having to travel further to the food source. I rather foresaw some of the young moving off to new pastures and the nest attaining a more acceptable number, foresight is not always as it turns out though.

The nest was so successful because of the planting I’d been doing the last year, and allowing nature to take its course, Butterflies and Moths laying eggs all round the place, which in turn hatched and soon enough little caterpillars were eating up the vegetation. That’s where the wasps came in; they fed on the caterpillars, voraciously.

It was a balance though; an ample source of food presented and something came along to eat it, and so on – is usually the way of things. But there appeared to be nothing to eat the Wasp. No deft Wasp eating birds about the place, nor Geckos willing to risk being stung in the dead of night, hence the intervention on my part.

But it seems I got it wrong, or went too far, and the nest has now been abandoned by the Queen, there’s always a Queen to start off a Paper Wasp’s nest. Gone to I don’t know where because it has become apparent the little caterpillars are having a ball in the greenery and plants are dying from lack of viable leaves.

And then, in my wanderings about the garden, I saw this fat yellow Lynx spider. There are many Lynx and other spiders around the garden but none as big as this one is, or has recently grown. It looks like what the Wasps are no longer doing the spiders might be.

Well, we’ll see what happens. That’s what I love doing in the garden, just seeing what happens next. It’s a real epic unfolding; when you really see the creatures little lives as important as our own – in their way.

Which of course they are to the web of nature, my nature. It is our nature after all and we can’t really do without any part of it for long or something gets out of whack.

But it always recovers, that’s its nature too, to live again – unstoppable it seems, and ever changing on a changeless reality.

A maelstrom of possibility in form, and no real need to interfere now, nor inclination to.

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It’s how we learn, by going too far – one way anyway.

Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab

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