Nature's Place

I came across the most incredible sight the other day. As I was carefully making my way through the rainforest, dodging the spider webs and water holes, I heard some strange sounds, like music but none I had ever heard before. It sounded distant but also seemed to be coming from behind a tree to my right, a few metres away.

I stopped dead in my tracks and as quietly as possible came upon the tree and rested my hand on it. I leaned out a bit to see around the tree and there in a clearing of grass, surrounded by fallen wood and other plants, stood an ant, and she was dancing. I know it was a she because she was so graceful. She was dancing a dance unlike any I had seen before. Amazing!

I hadn’t been spotted as I was quite still so had a look around and saw all these little creatures watching the dancing ant, an audience. What’s this then, insect culture? What a wonder to happen upon such a rare sight.

Were these then the little people of the forest that so many stories have referred to? Must be! Who else?

*

As I looked around I recognised some in the audience.

A neatly groomed Tufted Leopard Longhorn Beetle had climbed to the end of a stick overlooking the dancing ant and was waving his long horns in time with the music.

A Whiskered Weevil was sitting still on a nearby blade of grass, just listening as his antennae moved slowly in small circles.

A Sleek and Slim Waisted Zebra Wasp stood proud on her high perch and watched and listened intently, antennae twitching as the music rose up from the grass, source unseen.

A Giant Green Grasshopper sat safe on the side of a fallen log, absorbing the pure sense of this unusual rainforest scene.

And another kind of Ant, Golden Back, stuck to the spot, mesmerised by the magical ambience of it all in the fading afternoon light.

My attention wandered between the characters in this fairy like place and I was timelessly listening and seeing all that was there when a loud rasping sound went off in my ear.

*

I turned sharply to see what the cause of this sound was and there, looking down on me from the tree, not four inches from my nose, was the Countess Cicada, Matriarch of this little piece of rainforest.

Oooh! What a stern look she gave me. “What’s this, sneaking up on the little ones?” she said. “Why don’t you go about your concrete business and leave us foresters alone.”

“But I’m not a concreter” I said. “I’m a forester too, I’m just big for my size.”

“You don’t look like any forester I’ve seen before, are you sure you are a forester?”

“Well,,, I’d very much like to be”,  I said.

And she tut tutted at me. “You don’t know what you are saying, it’s dangerous being a forester, you could get eaten in seconds and no one would even know” she said in her rasping way. “Or get a broken leg and nobody to fix it.”  “But I can see you have some forester in you, why don’t you go tell the other concreters to be kinder to us little ones, that way you would become more like us too, if that’s what you want.” “You are just too big to be a forester anyway, but you can be more like us.”

“Ok” I said. “That makes sense, I’ll just go and tell the concreters how to be more kind to foresters and we’ll all be more like foresters.” So off I went to tell the good news to all the big concreters, but how?

I Know, I’ll ………… ((:

*

But it was all imagining, wasn’t it?

Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge