Bug Rain …
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It has rained for a week, or more … a tree fell across the drive, revealing rot enough three more have to come down, before they fall.
And on the way down it took the top off another healthy tree, full of bugs, that made its way to a bucket of water, to keep it alive while they …
One day there was nothing but the spider to shoot, who is now running out of flowers to hunt on. The next there was more than I could tell.
Ripples in the pond, a drop wets everything it touches.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Mother … Again
… and again.
Up close, without the personal … this spider doesn’t rationalise or emotionalise her situation. She is … the act of sitting. Knowing …
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Sitting in expectation, without a thought, as instinct informs her being something will come to this also active living flower.
Infinite variations in posture, in readiness for that something when it comes. An almost meditative occupation, why not … instinctively.
‘What’s that I see above me, come into my arms, let me show you the way of spider dear. A one way exercise, have no fear.’
Oops! No crack in this hard shelled ladybug, to slip in a pointed lesson in survival, not yours. And ladybug went on her way.
No mercy for the unwary though. She came for food for the hive and became food for the spider. Such is life to one, death to another.
And flies do join the banquet, never far from a feast. No more than providing for young yet … to be … you might think her a beast.
Being dead, no good for a bee. Or is death something else than a little body bent to spider queen. Coup de grâce complete.
… and again.
She stayed the life of the flower, then moved on to the next one. Pretty soon she was in food again, the more abundant honey bee attending.
I helper her along, so she didn’t have to move far, or rely on wind for direction – casting a thread to the currents is how she travels.
She will probably stay on this one for a while, it having multiple heads still to open. Then the butterfly bush should be in bloom.
We’ll see, nothing is sure but the rising and setting of the sun, as long as there is witness to it.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Mother’s Return …
First sighting was on the butterfly bush. She had tacked a few leaves together to form a shelter from which to survey.
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I am always careful not to disturb these small creatures too much but she wasn’t concerned at all, shifting only slightly.
And then I pushed in for a closer shot. Gotta take what is available, she may not be there for what is wanted. Things change.
At some point she climbed onto the sunflower and pulled a few petals over her, to guard her from the world of birds and things.
Upside-down doesn’t seem to bother her, she is just as agile as long as her feet touch something solid and her web holds.
She has no interest in those tiny creatures, hardly worth the effort to capture it seems. Waiting for the prize, a honeybee perhaps.
But not today, that I saw anyway. No doubt she will catch a meal to suit her needs, or she dies. It’s only a matter of nature.
She came with the rain, probably not the same one as – BEFORE.
Out of nowhere she appeared, on a butterfly bush that is two or more weeks from flowering, after a long slow spring.
I noticed her only because of the crumpled looking leaves. How she got there, and so big already, I don’t know. Abseiled in perhaps?
Then, next day, six feet distant, I found her on the sunflowers, where there would be more opportunity to exercise those fine tuned survival instincts.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Characters …
Each a unique expression of one life with one purpose.
To live just as they are.
Three stingless bees evicting another from the hive they attacked. This mop-up went on for months after the raid – https://beingmark.com/2017/06/16/a-crooked-dozen/ They probably defended the honey hoard or the queen, ’til death.
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Not a tasty looking morsel, to me anyway. Fiery red assassin bug in one of its early forms, the wing ‘buds’ give it away.
Katydid prowling the flowers at night. They don’t eat as much as their larger cousins, grasshoppers, so I leave them to the tender mercies of the other night stalkers. Who lives and who dies … who knows.
Tree blood, from the same one the red assassin bug is on above. Delicious … colour.
This moth ran into me one night in the garden, then stopped in front of the lens. Interesting ‘head’ gear, the fringe on top.
What can I say … a bug on a branch doing what it does, balanced with a drop of moisture. Everything has its place.
If you look carefully – click it – you will see this fly is depositing eggs on larva on the leaf above its head. A leaf from the same tree the recent sawfly and larva were found, here – https://beingmark.com/2017/06/09/a-dozen-of/
A leaf beetle. rounded, colourful and I’ve never seen it eat another creature except leaves. Maybe that’s its gentle nature.
And in the end … walking on the edge of the world. Precarious positioning. Don’t fall off …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Space Bugs
On parade … in their space suits.
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© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Beez …
… in the bush.
From the morning glory days, a male I think. Relishing a dose of nectar at the mouth of the mind altering flower.
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He took his time enjoying the liquid pleasure. A rare enough visitor, we being surrounded by desert dry gardens.
And more recently, a female I think. Taking a break from collecting pollen for the nest, there’s more to life than young.
And another break, or another bee, on my dry hand. Preening time, best to last a little longer in a wearing world.
Making the most of one native flower in the garden. It’s almost summer conditions here now, not yet though.
Another flower from the local bush, seeds collected and sown for the garden to give life to. She seems to enjoy it.
And all is well … naturally.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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The Company …
Long nosed weevil on the clothes peg basket. Held on tight with folded legs when I touched the plastic on approach for a shot.
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A common enough garden fly asleep – still need to be careful – at night on one of the less common flowers in the garden.
A bug of some kind, sap sucker, stopped on the young sunflower leaf for a while.
Green shield bug, another sap sucker, enjoying the abundance of nourishment in one part of the garden this sprinter.
Short nosed weevil making its way among the spring/winter plants.
Small orb weaver on a moldy old lemon – habitat – staked in the garden. Everything has its day.
Long legged weevils on an moldy old orange staked in the garden, making friends perhaps.
… of bugs.
Going about their daily business, our little cousins. In their often colourful and outlandish clothes, uniform (to the human eye) within their own tribe.
They often communicate with each other in passing, usually amongst their own kind.
Some do look almost gentle, why not. Others are spiky and dangerous.
Between them they are equipped to eat almost anything …
… a bit like people that way. Our insatiable nature.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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A Congregation …
… of beetles, doing whatever beetles do in a bunch.
An unusual gathering of beetles on this sandpaper fig tree, not doing much at all, that can be sensed …
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… the sense of being uncomplicated by self reflection, being a body, instinctively.
Humming on green … munching away on more green at the well of being. Life as a sandpaper fig tree beetle.
You can see why its called sandpaper fig tree, it feels like sandpaper.
The art nature is …
Mmmm …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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My Nature …
… instinctively. A small tree, it was almost out of leaves to eat. At first, undisturbed, they were without the orange display. Relaxed even.
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Once alarmed they just kept producing the orange, enough for it to drip. And their pointed ends, tipped with something else it seems.
Gotta get up close to this stuff, for the viewing pleasure. I didn’t taste it and couldn’t smell it. Maybe other creatures do and can.
It was difficult to find one separated, this one dripped onto itself. Making it less tasty? Who knows without trying it out, or observing.
Little beauty, right? Superb defense mechanism, I suspect, given the circumstances. Such things are proven over time, or discarded.
Walking about the local bush I came across an unusual sight. These are larva similar to that seen alongside the sawfly of a recent post. They have in common their appearance and this raising of their pointy rear end when alarmed but otherwise are of a different kind.
When I touched the stem they were congregating on they raised their rear ends, some quickly blew out that orange liquid and a few just dropped to the ground. I can’t imagine many would-be diners would find their appearance appetizing.
All get defensive, some go passive and some get aggressive, or have the appearance of that. Not unlike people under threat. But unlike ‘many’ people they (mostly) don’t give me any sense of a capacity for self reflection …
… the prerequisite to ‘self improvement’, which, after all is done and been, must end in the simplification of being, because everything else (being identified with any thing that dies, and every thing dies) hurts, eventually.
That is not to say there is no animal, big or small, that doesn’t have it – self reflection. It’s a wonderful earth and such a wonder wouldn’t be out of place here …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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