Winter Visitor
A shy bird, this solitary kookaburra. Only visits close when I am inside for some time, to take some of the food meant for the butcher-birds.
Otherwise s/he can be seen through the kitchen window around the wider garden diving from high to the undergrowth.
Searching, following the tell-tale signs of the unlucky creatures too small and slow to evade such deadly attention.
Survival is the name of the game. We all play it, refining our ways as we go.
And then … clearly.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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To Winter …
A new frog for my little garden. See the red, on its inside rear thing. I found it near the makeshift frog-pond – a tub of rainwater with various attachments to make it homely, to a from, or other small aquatic creatures.
Time enough for a few shots. Aiming for max presented surface in focus, with emphasis on the eyes and face. Always single frame shots, no stacking and no photoshop desired.
Bather at the bird-bath. A wet gathering this day, in between the rains. Looking raggedy, but they dry out nicely.
Move over guys and girls … They came, they saw and ate, and had a bath, before taking to the air and off into the wilds again.
Rainbow Lorikeet, they don’t stop for long so you have to be quick, quick enough.
One of them will always be keeping an eye out for danger, especially from the eagles way up in the sky. And the alarm rings out …
At first I thought it was a native wasp. But close up I’m not sure. I’m am sure it doesn’t mind though.
Naming and categorising is not in their nature, nor mine – with my memory for such things.
Gecko, just a youngster, possibly washed down from the roof in yesterday’s rains. It poured down for a while.
Dangerously exposed, near where the butcher-birds come to feed. But it survived a whole day and lived to tell … Lucky thing.
… you wouldn’t believe it, our winter, if you’re from one of those cold countries in the north. It’s more like an English springtime.
Mildly raining, on and off, flowers still growing, slowly. But still the garden is alive with the comings and goings of creatures.
And when the sun shines you realise how blessed we are, with such a congenial climate and engaging wildlife.
Lucky, you could say. Lucky wherever I am, whoever …
I just have to acknowledge it.
Sense to sensation.
Hmmm …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Little Man
This is how he likes to spend a little time close to Kate, relaxed.
Trying out the other chair, smelling the flowers no doubt.
A stern look. Now what did I do?
Did I drive him up the walls, maybe.
A few feet from the back door. Just saying hello.
And posing for a few shots.
The wall he was driven up.
Looking at you …
Looking …
As I stepped out into the garden and there he was. Little Man, Kate’s friendly dragon, lingering, watching.
In a flurry of action he jumped up onto the back of the chair, his favourite spot where he can see afar, and waits to see who I am, what I’m about in his garden.
Friend or foe, leaning to friend, as I toss him a bit of my food. He was waiting for it, we have met before. And he remembers.
These short encounters map a not insignificant tributary in a world of experience, for the little man.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Birds
The Laughing Kookaburra. Usually seen in a family group, who knows what’s happened to the rest of them. S/he sits on the post in the garden, surveying the landscape and lets me take a few pictures. With winter coming I have some food ready for them, just enough to keep going. We’ll see … Proud thing.
The Butcher Bird, a youngster. Comes with mum and dad who sing their melodious song, and so I give them a bite to eat. It’s always a pleasure to engage with them, to say hello. Everyone communicating in their way. They come and they go without attachment.
Eastern Curlew. Crazy Curlew. Well, they do give that impression at times but nothing in the wild is crazy. That epithet is rightly reserved for Man, describing an unnatural condition on the way out and then a season to pass through on the way home again. It’s all quite natural, for Man.
Curlew again, because I like it so much. They have no self-consciousness, just do what they do and move on, to do what they do. Driven by instinct, especially for food and shelter now that winter is coming. But wherever there is engagement with the wild life there is a communication, in some sense.
House Martins, or Swifts, they make their nests under the jetty at Victoria Point. Too fast for an in flight shot and the only time they stop still is when the wind is up. And so it was, a howling wind made captive subjects. Captured by nature, their own nature. Aren’t we all … Until we’re not.
Now what does that mean … But anyway, little darlings, aren’t they.
Honey eater, female I think. They life a bit of fruit too.
The one that got away, the lost picture. A pelican in flight overhead. Just got the one shot, not bad I think. Let’s see what the new season brings.
Now that summer is over and the supply of food is diminishing the wildlife is getting hungry, not just the birds.
Wallabies, rats, iguanas, everything is feeling the change of season and what it means when you live a wild life.
On the edge, hunger not too sharp yet, competition not so fierce. Though the wildlife do it differently.
Nobody holds on to the past. Whatever is done is done and gone. Every day is a new day.
They have no ‘second’ nature to trouble them. No remembrance of facts interpreted.
Just life as it is here and now.
The wild life.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Spidery Ways
At the edge of the verandah where it was relatively dry, for spidery business, a big huntsman sat immobile, in observation.
In a flurry of spidery action, legs and fangs whipped to instinctive focus, an unfortunate one treading, became a spidery meal.
The rain kept up and another refugee, wolf spidery mum and her yet to hatch spiderlings, came in out of the wet.
And so you know I’m not making it up, a batch of hatched spiderlings on another mum’s back, hiding. How she looks after them.
From behind, she wasn’t stopping still for long, gotta get the little ones to safety, in a ball, carried by a thread.
And from the front, what’s this, a springtail maybe, at home in the wet. But too small to eat, lucky creature, springtail.
It’s been raining a lot lately and at times the ground moves with the life forms traveling on the wet.
Refugees, just some of nature’s creatures seeking respite from the deluge.
And what is death to one is life to another.
Such are the ways.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Kate’s Friendly Fiend
Little Man … is his name. He’s a real poser when relaxed, and a fine looking friend.
He’s a friendly looking fellow too, there’s the beginning of a smile. Not a sign of aggression, just a boldness of presence.
With a bit of red to show he’s proud and unafraid. Willing to stand up and stand out, when needs be.
And he can see with both eyes, 360′. Head held high the better to see afar. Calms the wildness of the wild.
An unrelenting gaze, ever watchful, never too comfortable. Ready for action.
He’s a wild thing after all, though he may smile. He survives in the garden, a wild place to him, and home enough. Enough of a home, for a dragon.
And when he’s really hungry he comes to Kate for a bite. And if she forgets he’ll remind her with a nibble. He’s a friendly fiend after all.
No malice here, and intelligence enough not to cross the bounds, when he knows them. He’s evolving, after all.
He’s a youngster still, learning, to survive in Kate’s garden. Means his instinct is tempered by experience. He learns …
So he needs teaching. And who better than Kate, to nurture this Little Man on his way to doing his best, against the pressures of ‘Civilization’.
What does he see? Could it be he keeps an eye on his sub-domain, to protect himself, and his friend?
Keeping an eye out for snakes or other danger, or boon, that would threaten or support his survival. Looking past the flowers in the way.
And so he looks after Kate, in his way. Though he thinks she deserves a nibble when he’s too hungry, just to remind her.
Who’s that up above, is it an eagle, a tree snake, or …? No, it’s super Kate, with a morsel to nourish and educate him. It’s all give and take.
And who is that reflected in his eye, never mind. It’s good to have a Little Man guarding the place, in the land of snakes. And good to have a friend in nature … uncivilized, but friendly in his way.
Kate is a friend, who has a friend.
Kate thinks her friend is a bit of a fiend.
Because her friend likes to nibble Kate’s toes.
And Kate is afraid her friendly fiend will eat her toes.
By mistake maybe, thinking her toes would make a good meal.
I don’t think her friend is so fiendish, but not just friendly either.
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He came one day and got fed, so he came again, and got fed, and so …
He became a friend, because of self interest, and survival. Same thing really.
But a dragon is a dragon, fiendishly cunning in his will to survive, tempered …
By the will to survive in a new situation. Not dragon to dragon, or other wild creature.
But dragon to Kate, who would feed him, if he’s nice. And so, being a dragon …
A dragon he must be, but tempered, by Kate who feeds him, as long as he’s nice.
So nice he will be, though still a dragon, a nice dragon.
Instead of biting Kate’s toes and trying to eat them.
He nibbles a toe … he’s hungry …
Just to let you know.
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There’s a lesson in every encounter, you know.
And all you have to do is the hardest, let go.
Of what you feel, and think you know.
There it is, there you go.
Nothing to show.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Pelican Grooming
I did get a shot of one in flight as it passed overhead. But I can’t find it now. Ok, enough about the one that got away.
Down by the island ferry terminal to Coochiemudlo, these pelicans do show up and roost on top of very tall lamp posts and power poles.
I’m not there often enough to get more than the lazy part of the day, as they preen themselves, keeping their cloth in the best of nick for their daily doings.
It’s a common enough scene in nature, from the smallest to the biggest, they tend to their best functioning by preening etc, which tends to their appearance.
Not unlike us … Ok, maybe not all of us, all the time …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Revisiting …
… and visiting anew.
He got used to me appearing with the camera.
Allowed me closer after a while.
The big singer, little bird, has been practicing in the mirror again. Though he seems to have other things on his mind first thing of the day – maybe he found a mate after all that song.
She wasn’t unduly disturbed by my presence.
More relaxed after a while, but still alert.
I went outside the other day, to do what I do, looked down and there next to me was an unexpected guest. Python, with a big belly, snoozing while her digestion did its work – I think so.
You just have to follow this one around the flowers.
Eventually he shows his best side.
And a little colour, a darkling beetle on a red strawflower. Such a wonder, could something insignificant be so adorned. Or it’s not insignificant at all.
Ever alert for anything new in her space.
But once she’s satisfied there’s no danger she’s unstoppable in her instinct to finish the nest.
The red eyed bee is about again. Caught her exiting the nest site from provisioning it for her young, then sealing it up with chewed eucalyptus leaf.
Just a few of the recent visitors to house and garden.
Life goes on.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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The Regulars
Not great pix but, some better than others. … Starting with this one because it’s the one I wake up to recently. He, I suspect, comes along first thing in the morning and sings to his reflection in the car side mirror or window. He often leaves imprints of his wings on the windscreen, excitable fellow. A gentle creature though, big voice.
A much smaller bird, a honey eater, half the size of the one above, comes in a group to the birdbath almost every day – a family I think now, having seen the pic below.
Looks to me like a youngster harassing his mum for something to eat. A very common sight these spring days. She leaning away a little, letting them get on with it.
And there’s dad, keeping his distance. You can see our nature reflected in nature. As if nature is intrinsic to us, us to it. Who’d a guessed …
Another honey eater on the same branch, looking down at the birdbath. The same bird that was nesting in that tree when I arrived here, but moved on when the nest was damaged. Another family that visits regularly, for a regular clean bath …
Pied Currawong, one legged, a big bird – big as a crow. Gets about all right but when it comes to ground or branch work he’s a little handicapped. A very cautious fellow, understandably.
Bad hair day. Mum, looking a bit ragged maybe. But still very photogenic, with the right light and background.
And here’s why she’s looking ragged, if she is. One of her youngsters crying out to be fed. And what mum isn’t run ragged by the kids.
This is another kid – known here as a Joey (baby wallaby), but fending for himself, mum long gone it seems. He’s a very approachable little one, trusting.
Joey, baby wallaby again, growing up, looking healthy. Saying hello …
And then the butcher bird comes along. She has young to feed as well. Takes a little fruit or grain or meat now and again, whatever is going sometimes.
Stopped on the water tank for a few minutes. Listening out for who knows what … opportunity.
Caught napping, nearly bed time with the sun about to set – but the Stone Curlew is also nocturnal. Shooting through the long grass. She’s got feathers on her eyelids. Very fashionable, or fashion setting?
I could almost yawn …
Oops, did I wake her? Maybe, but she didn’t move, just wary of company at sunset.
I am lucky here, having a place on acreage that’s surrounded by nature’s characters coming and going with their families in this springtime.
I look out my sliding glass door or window and I see green, I hear birds all the time, and if anyone is hungry they let me know. I’m not one to refuse to feed the nature, and not the only one around here.
We have already intruded on them and denying them is an unnecessary complication of self. Apparently the experts now agree, so we can all stop feeling guilty or confused for feeding the wildlife. Silly isn’t it, the nonsense that prevails sometimes.
Sticking to quality ingredients and moderation won’t induce illness or dependence.
Just like us, if we’re careful, in a crazy world. Hmm …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Nature's Place 
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