Nature's Place

… and their lovers.

Big bad leopard beetle loving the strawflower early in the morning. No sign of trouble. … Hmm, pollen of gods.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

Some kind of wasp loving the sunflower. … Somewhere to wait out the wind, grab a bite and survey the landscape.

Shield bug loving the butterfly bush flowers, sitting in the sun, bouncing in the breeze. … Not a worry in the world.

Flowers need a bit of loving.

Love the flowers … or else.

Or else they’ll die.

© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.

*

*

Small bee, or wasp, enjoying the regurgitation of some nectar, or something else. In and out, in …

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

… and out … Sitting out the passing clouds on a cold winter’s day as she savoured this tasty drop.

Ready then to set off into the wild green garden, no thought for any future.

Sense is too good, to a bee and me, to spoil it with thinking.

There’s a cold wind off the sea that reaches inland and chills the garden.

The small creatures feel it, especially when the sun goes in.

But then the sun comes out again.

What a life …

© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.

*

*

The more common kind of weevil visiting the decaying lemon. A female I believe, sitting unusually tall but with thin front legs.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

I often observe her with her rear end touching the lemon’s surface. Depositing eggs I think. The lemon serves a multitude it seems.

That would make sense. Also, a weighty rear end is economically supported on the ground, and keeps the head up and alert.

Here she’s grazing. Then she makes the perfect subject, too absorbed to notice any disturbance I make in her landscape.

Then there’s mating, and those long male legs come in handy to maintain position and balance on an otherwise precarious lemony world.

An other kind of weevil, or babies frolicking on a young lemony world. It’s hard to say without interfering …

Where the lemon attached to the tree a fungus grows from within, and he loves it. … Notice his long legs now, broad at front, apparently oversized.

When the lemons in the house start turning I put them to use in the garden.

Staked on bamboo or otherwise, they age in the sun and rain and eventually attract these tiny weevils.

They graze on the cracking skin and any fungus or mold that grows on it, absorbed in the business of survival.

When they stop still it’s usually for a time, time enough to observe and for a few shots anyway.

But once they are on the move there is no hope, fast and agile as any fly in the garden.

*

It’s in the nature of form to move. Trick is to be still enough to catch it before it’s gone.

Though it’s essence never really leaves, nature returns anew, is never the same again.

When seen with a steady focus, to be imbued with the creative spark of life.

Click – Life On A Lemon – for the original.

© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.

*

*

Come into my arms … said the spider to the … bee, or whatever edible unlucky enough to come along.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

Such a lovely coloured flower … will give pollen to fortify and nectar to speed you on your way. … Spider’s gotta eat too.

A magnificent beast … free of any impatience, or willfulness … simply waiting with a sense of being, hungry or to reproduce …

And every now and then she gets up and wanders around her home in the mauve flowering. Being what she is, seeing what she sees.

Always with a touch to her early warning system, trip threads. … A flower, wonderful little home for a crab spider.

This crab spider has family all over this land, little clones of each other, appearing to my un-spider eyes.

After the struggle to survive the summer they are now mature at this time of year and take advantage of the native flowering.

Also called flower spiders, because they make great bases from which to attract a mate and feed, sitting waiting for an unlucky bee.

Ambush preying is a way of life for these little forms of life, they can’t help it, it’s their nature, instinctively.

*

We do it too, prey, ambush, for some personal advantage perceived. Calculated … Instinctive nature made self conscious.

We people are lucky though, you could say, having potential to see beyond the instinctive.

Through the self made conscious. To the divine … or to divine purpose.

But purpose is not for the herd, an other instinctive manifestation.

© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.

*

*

Here’s looking back at ya.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

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.

*

*

She was about 8 inches long so I settled for the most intelligent aspect of any creature, the face.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

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.

*

*

At rest, unworried by the missing lower rear leg. Weevil being what weevil does.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

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.

*

*

Green Shield Bug with a drop of water from the hose, waiting out the shower.

*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again

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.

*

*