Rain … on some colourful characters
It has rained on and off for weeks now, or so it seems, little sense of time. Everything outside is wet, and everything inside is damp. But it is not cold, to me.
In the bush today at Mt Cotton it was lovely to see the dams were full, lovely water, cool and wet. Muddy tracks too. The wild forms of life are still numerous and enjoying the change of temperature, though some die, as always. Some live too.
On one particular young flowering bottlebrush tree I observed the ant’s perennial search for nourishment force an encounter with an intransigent creature, a tiny Cicada. The ants were all over it but didn’t know how to make any impression on it to react, it was armoured to them, untouched.
Hoverfly came to inspect a purple flower just above the ground, tiny wasp took sustenance from another pink flower, red eyed dragonfly rested in the shadows until I disturbed it – a colourful young beauty indeed, two red and black ladybugs mated on the leaf of a short plant, colourful spider ate a ladybug in the safety of the web, young toad looked me in the eye while I took his photo.
A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up a small yellow flower from amongst the shadows, a young tree frog sat on the fence and didn’t move while everything else happened around him, and golden ant prowled the red terrain in search of what ants seek.
Majestic electric blue moth crossed my path. Gecko sat for me on the whitewashed wall behind the window grating, eyeballed me too. And a few more of natures creatures passed on by.
As I was leaving this cool wet place the sun shone warm through the trees and lit up the path.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge (nine below)
Season’s End
Summer is winding down from the piercing white light and stifling humid heat to cooler blue grey rain with occasional cold, if it can be said Brisbane ever really gets cold. Autumn is here. The colours change. There are fewer creatures to shoot but the ones there are also slow down with the temperature, as I do. It’s a seasonal thing, everything is.
The Dragon, herald of change and action, came and went according to its season, is still here in lesser numbers and no less beautiful. The Grasshopper, local symbol of success in leaps and bounds, filled the gap between the waves of Dragons. And Flies, Caterpillars, Moths, Wasps, Flowers and Spiders all take their place in the multidimensional sense of my life.
There is a time to move and a time to stay, a time for yes and a time for nay. Who knows which is which till its done? Not I. For sure. Though I see it coming, inside, where it hasn’t taken form just yet. Nonsense to some I know, but not to me. Everything has its season, even the unknown, the invisible. You see?
Flood, storm, rain or shine. On the black screen of mind. Whatever may be.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Dragon’s Return – Red Lace Queen
They didn’t really go away, but they have been showing up more again on my walks recently. One in particular has been sitting still for me, if you could call it that in a swirling and gusting breeze. Down by the water, out in the bush, on an old dead tree branch sticking in the ground, a red beauty has been perching.
The first day it took a few minutes before she was comfortable with me having slowly edged up close and standing there next to her. Two feet away, close enough to get some good shots. It is the habit of the dragonfly to flit from the perch to chase down prey, anything small enough to eat, usually that also flies. She came and went for hours it seemed.
It is also the habit of the dragons to chase each other, and sometimes eat each other, as I have seen on occasion. Every time she came back it was face into the wind, naturally, to land. Then she would reorient herself so she was facing me, the best she could, the wind was strong at times. However the wind was blowing I remained on the sunny side, more or less.
When I moved left or right to get an angle shot, or more of her in the light she would move so she was facing me. So I got a lot of head-on shots. Eventually she gave up this con-frontational behaviour and went about her business as usual, with me now to be accounted for in her terrain, naturally.
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A few days later I went walking there again and saw her perched on the same stick from ten metres down the track and as I approached she turned to me. We said hello, I did anyway. It didn’t take much time at all for her to become accustomed to me this time, a matter of seconds. She recognised me and knew no danger in the event.
Then she was off, chasing this and that on the wind. Returning to perch in front of me and facing into me again. I played this game with her for a while, dodging to the left and right to get the shot, and it worked out.
I met a beautiful creature and she met me, in silence, a rare exchange, and it resonates in me still.
Dark queen, wild red wind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Rose – A Simple Pleasure
When all is said and done it’s the simple pleasure of being that matters, without the trouble of mind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Mother Nature
It’s called a money tree – the leaves you can see, by someone, way back when I can’t remember. Where the wasp has started building a nest, a paper wasp, a paper nest. She is alone in the endeavour and there are at least three cells of the hive occupied so far. I have seen the little grub she leaves in the cell, a tiny thing about two millimetres long. And she spends a lot of time away from the hive, probably hunting food to put in with her young, her little babies. Food entombed in sensational paralysis to be eaten as needed, alive. My magnificent nature.
Whenever I go to have a look at the nest she fronts up and eyeballs me. Stands up tall, spreads her wings and ‘rattles’ her front legs at me. She is serious about her young, and dangerous if disturbed. But she won’t waste the energy harassing me if I don’t give her good cause by disturbing the nest. I wonder if she will get used to me, maybe one of the young will be my friend? I don’t think so somehow. Not these wild creatures, their instinct is too basic, no facility for socialising. But who knows, there are exceptions. Watch this space.
Isn’t she magnificent the way she poses in defence of the hive, the beautiful instinctive intelligence to survive in form rendered as a bold defiant stance, against all comers. And that she never has a doubt about what she is doing, no wasted thought, no wasted energy. All her energy going to what she is designed for, to live as wasp and reproduce, against all comers. Magnificent nature.
The fact is I see this, perceive this, in me. Inside. I re-cognise this part of my nature represented in the wasp. It is my nature, since I came ‘up’ through the species, the instinctive psychic structure and not just the appearance in sense. And it is still a part of me, a part of my nature now, in my psyche. The beauty of it is in recognising it I see the being of it, me being that, before thought gets in to distort and make something else of it.
It is wasp and, as clear as my attention to it is, I am being that, in the moment. When ‘that’ is not I am, being, no problem. The best I can. The same goes for any other nature I cognise, when thought or emotion doesn’t get in the way there is only ‘that’.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Beautiful Black Bee
No Grasshoppers today, though there are plenty to come, maybe.
I was out exploring some local bushland when I came across a single flowering plant. It was the focus for many flying insects that didn’t sit still for a moment, and then this black bee came along. It visited one flower after another and if I hadn’t been ready with settings on the camera it surely would have passed me by without a proper hello.
It is possible to plan such a shot and execute it, if you have nothing else to do. But I think too much is made of the photographer, after all if the nature doesn’t show up it’s just a camera with no pictures.
Apart from the technical information required to know what to do with the camera in any situation or lighting the one thing that sets a snapshooter above the crowd is vision. Inner vision, that makes the shot before it is taken.
So it is with any endeavour, clear intention and focus gets me through. As clear as possible, as long as I persist. Whoever ‘I’ am.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Grasshopper
I have observed everything has its season and that includes things as they appear to me or in my perception. Things can be without them necessarily appearing ‘to me’. The dragons are still about in large numbers but they aren’t sitting for me much anymore. It is still the season for Dragons but not Dragons for me. Dragonflies are said to be symbolic of fundamental change, with style, obviously. And everything else is also symbolic. Of what is the question, it always is.
It is now the time of the grasshopper, they are everywhere I turn these days and I am waking up to their presence. So let’s have a look at what the grasshopper presents. They don’t have the same drama about them as the dragonfly but they do have their own character, though somewhat withdrawn from view.
Grasshoppers are grazers, laid back little fellows, and so don’t present a threat to anything but the leaves of plants. They tend to blend with their surroundings in various shades of green or brown, with the occasional showman or woman, unlike the dragons who are all colour and show.
They can disappear with a kick of a leg, I’ve seen them with only one, and they can be poked and prodded without giving more than a sideways shuffle to show they noticed. They are their own beauty, unassuming in appearance, soft and strong when necessary but never aggressive.
Have you ever seen a grasshopper negotiate for grazing rights?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Death of a Dragon
In the cold light of the cloud darkened swamp mozzies swarm. I suspect they only swarm where there is a chance of a feed and that’s how they recognised me today, as potential food, by scent or sense of some kind. Hunger drives all in existence, for this or that, for survival. The only effective deterrence I know of is in a spray can, and don’t forget the hat. If there is a hole in the hat and it hasn’t been sprayed a mozzie will find it and inject such an itch, they can be big ones here and they are as persistent as life itself. Instinctively so.
Enough rain has fallen in a few days to flood the forest and surrounding area. This is tropical rainforest/coastal wetland/mangrove swamp terrain after all. Walking in the place is precarious since the wooden boardwalks are also slippy from soaking up the water, slippery as mud. It pays to respect the changed conditions. A shorter stride, planting the foot vertically, more controlled movement keeps the body upright. Or one can always go for an unplanned swim in the creek that is full and fast right now.
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I was shooting a golden Dragonfly a few days ago in an area of bush an hour or so before sunset. It was by the water but not on it, a huge dam, and the tracks were only infrequently trodden so the going was good body work, nothing too repetitive, an occasional scramble. The colours of the setting sun were soft and warm and the dragon was available from many angles which I took good advantage of. It was darkening quickly and I was taking what was probably the last of the shots when through my camera I saw the creature disappear in a flash of action too fast to register the detail. I was quick to see outside the cameras frame the dragon I was photographing was actually taken by another dragon, a green one, and I suspected some kind of play or mating. I had never seen a golden Dragon and a green one together before.
I could see my dragon was taken from behind and in the others firm embrace, and when I followed to where they came to rest I was amazed to see the kidnapper eating my dragon head first as he struggled to get free, pawing backwards at the intruders eyes with his long thorny legs. It was a vain effort but an effort nonetheless and after a few minutes the struggle ceased as the head disappeared into the green dragons mouth and belly, to expose the flesh of the torso and all the muscle that makes a Dragon so adept at flying. That’s life. Dragons eat dragons, now I know, if I didn’t before.
At a clearing down by the waters edge the still bright sun was hot and dazzling, leaving blind spots in my vision where I couldn’t help but see the sun’s reflection while looking out for the variety of Dragons that inhabit this area. It is a miniature aerial battleground where many kinds of dragon chase one another in a flashing of wings and deft maneuvering by all concerned. It is a sight to see Dragons flying in tandem being chased by others and chasing too, all in their colours softened and highlighted by the light and against the clear calm reflective water, perfectly synchronous.
The famous dogfights of The Battle of Britain over the English Channel would have been training for what goes on here, poetic aerial ballet.
And the victors fed.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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