The Dry
Drought is no stranger in Oz and it is back with a vengeance. While we usually have the wet season about now it has drizzled and gently rained on a few days out of the last few months and it isn’t looking like getting wet any time soon. The bees, and everything else, are dying for the rain, the monsoon that brings more life than death.
This has significant implications for the wildlife, water being the first requirement of sustainability. But everything gets through, adapts or moves on. As it happens there is one spot that will probably never really dry up as it is an integral part of the drainage system of one of our big shopping centres that flood water from the inland hills must pass through – it was once a part of the natural system that was built over but maintained.
There is always an upside, as far as I am concerned, it’s how I keep going through the brutality of a war zone society often looks to be – and actually is. Yeah, let’s not go into that – you see it or you don’t and that’s enough. Nature is also a war zone, but there’s nobody to suffer emotionally – is there another kind – from it. Optimism has no place but with the pessimist.
So I tend the garden, more of a haven for the little ones this year than last. Some surprises – a new born Emerald Cuckoo Wasp, and some amusement – the bum of a bee sticking up out of a bamboo, looking like it doesn’t realise. And one giant wasp and mate that make good use of some water I leave out – must be over 2” inch long and thick as my little finger – that is well aware of me and to whom I haven’t gotten close, yet – we’ll see. You get the pix I get …
What a shocker nature can be, to the insanity of the emotional thinker, if it can but see … what a wonder, in a sense of the whole where the particular retreats to perspective … and it only lasts the blink of an eye.
The rest is just living; no big deal except it keeps going somehow – by the same singular purpose.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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New Year?
Not for this little fellow. Probably because he was shot on Xmas day, and it was raining. It is still 2012,yes??? Had to check.
What’s this obsession with the marking of time, easter, birthdays, holidays, xmas and now new year? Or is it just a distraction from time, psychological time.
Is it just a political and economic opportunity? Or has that just usurped the natural people’s celebration of the passing of the seasons. Because make no mistake, the pollies and business-men only have their own best interests at heart – with the occasional exception, there’s always an exception to make the rule.
Anyway, given the obscenity and sentimentality of modern celebrations I give them a miss. I would rather be writing this, or shooting pix in the field or garden, but certainly not getting inebriated with so-called friends who are gone tomorrow when the headaches set in.
Inebriated on my own, now that may be, and everything else out of mind? Feet up and watching a no ads TV program or movie of a night. :)
And now and again going and having a look at what the new night may have brought, moths, spiders, and all …
Anyway, I trust you still enjoy the pix, and sometimes the words that go with them.
All the best …
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Maternal Instinct
The bee hotel referred to in the last post is actually a maternity ward. There are now eight or nine holes filled by the Orange Tailed Bees with eggs and what they need when they hatch. I have also seen the bees dig out the holes after an Ichneumon wasp has visited and taken advantage, by laying her eggs in or on the bee’s eggs.
I suppose they are more a resin bee as they line and seal the nests with resin collected from somewhere nearby. Then they finish off with a layer of earth so the hole doesn’t look much different from the surrounding wood. They are very particular about this finishing process and it is the only time to get a shot of them, when they are in the open and fully focused on the nest. And until they finish a nest site they usually sleep in the hole and can be seen pulsing in the night light of a good torch.
It is still very early in the year for bees and wasps so I expect there will be ample opportunity to observe the comings and goings about the bee’s ‘holed log’ hotel. And they are not the only bees to take up nesting there but the others are just too fast and small so far, to get any pix.
Another curious structure has begun to appear at small holes around the house, and on another log of different wood that I also drilled for nesting creatures. It’s a wasp’s nest to which there is a mud tunnel for an entrance which the wasp takes much time to build. After the wasp is done the tunnel disappears and the hole is plugged with mud.
All just going about their business, except for the ubiquitous ants who go about everybody else’s business, it seems – raiding smaller bee’s nests, at a cost. So I make it that the ants can’t have everything by hanging the nests from a rope or chain and make it impassable without wings.
Such is living in this little piece of urban jungle.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Bugs Galore …
This one went to sleep in the Sunflower, no better place to wake up first for an early start to the day.
… or, how to attract bugs to your garden so you don’t have to go hunting and can’t say you can’t find any to shoot – with the camera of course … :) You don’t have to be a gardener, sense will do, just don’t think too much.
Bugs need all the same things we do, so it shouldn’t be difficult finding any once the basics are provided – by you and the available but often unknown, unpredictable or hidden nature. These days, after so many years of insecticide and habitat destruction, ignorance of the simple fact of things, nature can do with a little help from friends – people who have some respect for the little things without the need of reward other than the nature itself. That’s the idea anyway.
This one came in the house one night and I caught it when it landed, put it on a Sunflower and got a few shots – no idea what it is, Sawfly maybe …
Where to start? Put yourself in the creature’s shoes and look at what you need for the basics. They are no different to us, just smaller and it’s a jungle to them, or a desert, but wild and savage either way. We’ve got a piece of earth, no matter how small or barren it is, and depending on what is most obviously absent I would start with that. If it’s shelter that’s missing provide some, in the form of plants and old tree trunks if there are any handy, or anything that will provide shelter from the elements will do, even bricks or just bits and pieces.
Plants need water and so do bugs, so water is necessary, watering the plants and an open and available source which can be as simple as a bucket you keep filled – bird’s love it too – will serve many creatures as long as there is ramp access of some kind, like a stick or other stable buoyant object/s for them to drink and gather from.
Got a good watering as I do the daily rounds, didn’t seem to mind much …
For food a compost heap of only vegetable matter is a great production ground. Keep it moist and shaded and it will be a centre of life in the garden even if it’s not obviously so. Don’t be too discrimination, the spiders and plant bugs have to have their day, and the garden will eventually find its own equilibrium. Save any plants you can and be generous to the garden and its needs – and it will be generous in return. That’s the way it works, diligence is always rewarded, and you don’t have to be an expert though there’s nothing stopping you if that’s what you want in order to know and understand more.
Flies, love the compost heap. Also attract predators, another form of life in the wild little nature.
Shelter is essential if the other basics are in place. If there’s nowhere to sleep or rest the bugs won’t stay for long – would you? So the plants are shelter to some bugs, the compost is that to others, you can have a heap of wood in another spot, and then there is the mimicry of specifics such as for bees that I have.
I have an old cut log that I drilled varying sized holes in for all the flying creatures that might take up residence. I had it up for months before any bee took an interest, and then wasps and other flying creatures came along and many holes are now occupied by the next generation.
If I am attending enough I may even see some of these babes emerging.
If you have wings and are the right size, and like holes, this is the place for you – see the bee approaching bottom left …
One thing the little nature doesn’t need is philosophy, or teaching of any kind. They are instinctively intelligent and don’t need to dwell on anything outside the moment so they are as content as can be, no problem.
One thing I have to watch out for is the Ichneumon Wasp, she parasitises the others nests and that won’t do. So I discourage them, in my way. Just as I discourage parasites of another kind, the human kind …
Mantis, keeps the hungry Grasshoppers in check, naturally …
Other predators are also attracted to the garden if you give it enough time.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Little Earth
Out where the soil is dark and damp there grow cities for the little ones. You know, the little people, the fairy’s, the bugs ‘n’ things …
On cities called plants, some deliberately grown for the purpose, are housed in their way all the different kinds of creatures, and fed by flowers and other inhabitants in particular. All sorts of shapes, colours and sizes, and with their particular niche, fit the metropolis called the garden – not unlike people in that way.
I haven’t been tending it as much as usual, getting down and dusty with the magical ones, but haven’t been neglecting them either. Everything has its season; some plants can’t stand the condition of the soil – too much clay, or just don’t fit into the network for long and die off. And the creatures grow, come and go, and I move some around if they are decimating a particular area.
Yes, I interfere, that’s why it’s called a garden and not a forest or meadow – gardens are managed somewhat, though as little as possible in my case. Much because I don’t know anything about gardening, plus I prefer to see what arises from the earth given the best conditions I can provide – with water, rot, light and shade.
One unusual housing complex, an old log I drilled with the possibility of bees making nests in it as it hangs under the veranda, is now well on its way to being populated. There are Orange Tailed Leafcutter bees, one kind of mud working wasp, a big old long and thin Ichneumon Wasp looking to lay in some others nest – and another short and fat kind, a variety of other flying creatures, scavenging ants – and a long term resident Spider. A host of creatures making a home of the holes I drilled – moving too fast to get many shots of them yet.
One thing about the nature is you’ll never catch it ruminating on the past; it’s always in the present without the speed bump of self reflection to bring it grinding to the turgidity of emotional consideration – we endeavour.
Flying or standing still in its ever coloured coatings, shining brightly in the summer sun, there’s truth in that worn old beetle.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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Cock o’ the Walk
When you watch nature’s creatures you soon begin to see an extraordinary thing. They don’t get emotional. They don’t have psychological positions to protect from dissolution, because they are not identified with any of it. They simply live their life, doing what they do from moment to moment.
If only people would do the same, but with the knowledge that to cause pain is to receive it, whatever form it takes. And that’s what we do until we wake up to it. I am not special, I know this from my own experience of getting it wrong, of giving pain instead of love.
But waking up is not easy, even, or especially, for the ones who think they are already special. The ‘revolutionary’ fighters of causes, the so-called spiritual ones who love to dress up – inside and out, anyone in fact who is identified with what they demonstrably are not – that is a psychic condition and demonstrably unsustainable.
We, I, am demonstrably the body, inside. Outside is just the appearance of inside. And inside I am the simple sensation, that never lets me down, or I am nothing – an apparent psychological impossibility, but only if you believe that. Anything I think is a Chimera, gone with the next best wind.
I don’t believe, in fact I have spent my life tearing down the belief I was inculcated with by the dysfunctional Catholic church in the form of the Christian Brothers schooling – the most violent people I have ever come across, simply because they used such trickery you didn’t know you were being used and abused – and all in the name of god. God wills it! The cry of hypocrites down through the ages.
God wills nothing of the sort. I say god would have you know love and enjoy the beauty of the earth and rest in knowledge of uncommon truth. People who had taken a vow of celibacy in a vain attempt to emulate a fallacy of the master Jesus being without the love of woman in his life – even though there have since been found scrolls that put Mary Magdalen at his side when the 12 disciples had already abandoned him – bloody cowards, lost in their hopes and fears. And hail Mary, for her undying love. :)
The body won’t be denied, it is a sexual entity, evidence the world population if you need any. And what is suppressed comes up in another place but distorted. Hence the worldwide phenomenon of priests being chased, at last hunted down, for their sexual abuse of children who were in their care. ‘Care’, a euphemism nowadays for neglect, or worse.
The same is true of any organisation that puts ideology over actuality. Ignore the fact for long enough and it will come home to bite you in some other form. The trick to waking up and ending this absurdity called our way of life is to get back home, back to the reality of the body, inside, as the sensation first, and acting from there and not from what the mind conjures out of want and greed, desire and ambition – for position or power, usually over others.
But how to do it, get back home? Well, you can make a start here : Meditate. Or wherever you find what fits you. And just keep at it until you break through the crust of mind that would have you do something else, to fill your inner space.
And the fundamental key to it all? Relax, be easy, let go, inside … And Kick some ass if need be. My 2c. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
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In The Green …
It’s a colour that can’t be avoided. It’s everywhere, even if it looks like no nature could live here – if here were a hole in a wall – there it is, green – if only a speck to start with. Nature’s primary colour.
And between the Sun and Earth, with some influence of the Moon and planets, all the other colours arise, each having its own place of being – like leaves on a Sunflower stalk.
And it is all done inside, deep in the psyche that is the inner of deep outer space. It’s where colour is made, first. Then it happens ‘out’ here. In other words it is created in the act of seeing.
You don’t have to believe anything to know if this is true. You only have to look when the mind is still. Or look ‘past’ or through the mind to the other side of it, inside, as you would dirt on a window pane, and you will see what is there now.
The best way to do this is just ignore what arises from the mind as thought, and as an aid focus on the simple tingling sensation anywhere in the body – one and the other.
Eyes closed helps, in the darkness is good, comfortable. But it can be done anywhere, any time, by anybody who is so inclined.
Look past the things of mind and see what you see. It could be anything, but it is surely right for you, as sure as night follows day. It is surely true, and may not be so tomorrow.
Look into the depths of deep inner space, past the forms that have been gathered in this life, and on the way in you will see all that you were on the way out.
Only now you don’t have to hold on to any of it, let go. Or hold to the simple sensation, the tingling, anywhere you find it. Or the sense of wellbeing, being well – it has little to do with physical health.
Everybody who’s searching is looking for origins, the why and where from, or solution outside when all that is needed is to look inside to where it all comes from.
What is it that is behind the forms of mind, and in the forms of nature, that is not man made?
When stillness descends. What is it?
Or after some work in the garden, or a walk in the field, sit down and close your eyes. It’s possible the pure psychic impression of the nature you have just been in and acknowledging will be resonating in your mind. Let it be, relax.
Let it ring inside as the bell rings out here, hold to nothing. The re-sounding of your sweet nature.
And be at peace, because nothing else really matters.
Hmmmm?
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
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Wooyung – Spring ’11
It’s a quiet place in N Eastern NSW, right next to Billinudgel NP, off the beaten track. There is a caravan park next to the beach where there is always a welcome from Chris and Lutz. I stayed in the caravan park from where it was a short walk to the beach with the continuous ebb and flow of the ocean surf, and dangerous rip currents – not usually for swimming in. And literally across the road to the BNP where I found the creatures for the pix in this post.
At night the only sound was the surf breaking up on the sand, and the only light the stars in the sky. I’ll be going back. It was a lovely quiet natureful place and I trust it is still there in the future. Out of the way places like this that aren’t very far from amenities are not easy to find.
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It rained for a day or two but that only meant I had to do things differently on those days, shooting in the shelter of the open garage with things arranged for the simplicity of process.
Simplicity, has a nice ring to it.
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This Cricket (to me) was awake early and was attracted to the warmth of my hand so it was a constant game to keep it in view without my fingers getting in the way. Though, as you can see, I gave in eventually.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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A Wave of Wasps
One recent day I noticed all these Ichneumon wasps about. They were flying around checking dark spots on the wood and anything upright. I have seen them before doing this, once, and what happened was the wasp turned round and lowered her pointed end into the darkness and ‘I suppose’ laid an egg, having found something in the darkness to lay it on.
They can smell or otherwise sense with the tip of their tail, very useful that, to a wasp. And it’s not really a tail, it’s an ovipositor, or egg depositor down which she delivers her eggs to a suitable place for growth and development – survival.
That’s what they do when laying time comes, the egg is laid on another creatures laying, such as a grub, and lives and grows on that. Nature doing what it doe, one thing living off another.
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Humans do it too, but they’ve gone mad and feed off each other now. Those movies about people going mad with a rage virus are a metaphor for the truth that seems hidden from most. It’s been happening ever since self reflection caused instinct to warp into emotional self interest.
The way we are. It takes every moments effort to keep that emotion from taking control, as it has with most people. But there’s nothing else worthwhile doing, so …
Into the breach, and see what comes my way …
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Nature's Place 
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