Pollinators Past
More than a pollinator of flowers or crops.
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See the colour, the form, and wonder …
… are they just elements to be killed or harnessed?
Or is it clear these magnificent beauties are representative of something purer, unseen …
… of our own wonderful mystical nature that defies reducing.
They frolic in the flower heads … pollen dripping from their mouths.
Sit out the rain on a big yellow pillow.
Climb around the butterfly bush looking for the tastiest morsel.
Flit from flower to flower, playing in the garden.
The colours, this neon fiddler beetle.
Where better than on a crucifix orchid to pray in the dark of the night.
She traversed the garden, flower to flower, looking for the best spot to hatch her young. Pollinating as she went.
I’ve been asked to link to a calendar event about pollinators.
It’s not really what I’m about here but everybody needs to do something and any acknowledgement of nature is better than a lot else, closer to the earth.
So I’ll add my small piece to the picture. To call them pollinators is to reduce them to a function they perform in nature. It’s rational, scientific, but they are much more than that, to me.
To me the primary value of nature (insect pollinators in this case) is as a reminder of something else, through sense. Because when you’re under the hammer of mind as rampant thinking or the dreadful emotions it usually ends up stirring it is sense that helps you out for good – no undesirable (side) effects.
Sense as I see it, outside the world of mind-made problems, is a spiritual element of being in that, properly acknowledged, it can help resolve the problem of mind by nothing more than focus of attention, and right action, that may lead to realisation of something greater.
Any endeavour that omits the spiritual element and value, of sense and the realisable power or space within which a thought or planet occur – not religion, please – is doomed to be repeated.
Enjoy the pollinators for what they are … wonderful little earth creatures, faeries down the bottom of the garden … while they are.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Dark Jewels
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One jewel from last year and one from this, so far.
The rain has begun and it looks like we will get our normal wet weather season this year, monsoon.
It’s already showing in the phenomenal growth in the garden, everything is just reaching for the sky and it’s a pleasure to see and be in it.
Lovely weather too, cool breeze in the warm morning sunshine. Refreshing rain at intervals, not too far apart or too much at once.
Nice and steady … as steady can be in an ever moving world.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Emergence …
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Then it quickly found it’s legs and ran up the tree towards the light, away from the shadow of my lens, born again again.
Walking the edge of the water treatment plant, that borders the local wilds, I saw a strange – even to these experienced eyes – thing.
I couldn’t make it out at first, it looked so oddly shaped, but after a few shots – so I could see closer – it became apparent it was a form of Shield-bug, in the midst of a rarely observed transition.
They outgrow their shell, exoskeleton actually, and periodically have to moult – usually there is a split along the back through which the new form pushes out. A very dangerous time for them, being immobile for the duration and soft, vulnerable – to some degree held back by the tight fit of the old skin.
Springtime is here again and small creatures are emerging everywhere. At first in smaller size, visible by their increasing numbers. With spiders hatching in the hundreds, a feasting of expendable form, everything is living off something else.
A cascade of life and death begins, by which another emergence takes place, those relative few that live to maturity, who make up the cast of earthy characters.
… and I’ll probably get a few pictures of this burgeoning operatic show.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Morning Queen
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First light of the day is a good time to catch the wildlife unawares. They haven’t quite woken up yet, aren’t so active as when it warms up.
And first thing today there was an ant. A queen of her kind, Green Head kind. She must have taken flight at first light, I’d guess.
Her wings took her to an old lemon on a stake, where I couldn’t get a shot, so I helped her to the butterfly bush.
I thought she might slow down there and even take some nourishment from the little yellow cups.
And so she did, before some preening, then wandering off round the nearest leaves.
So I present to you, a queen of the morning …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Keeping It Simple …
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Still …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Bee – Blue Banded Beauty
Keeping it simple …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the picture for a closer lookk Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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A Blast …
… from the past.
A few pictures from earlier this year, since there has been so few to shoot lately with the advanced cold of our winter.
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The way to view these pictures is not to name but to sense, then go do it in the garden, if you want a sense of peace.
These images are representative of something else that, when duly attended, echoes colourfully in the mind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Introducing …
… variations in form, of one life.
Wild, instinctive little biological robots at work and play, or just being what they are.
Jumping Spider sitting on bamboo stake, overseeing …
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Chafer – Flower – Beetle, belatedly found the one piece of banana in the garden.
Weevil on the orange, on a bamboo stake.
Tiny female Fly laying into the ageing lemon on a stake.
Daisies, a popular roost for flies at night. This one preening after a good poo, like people do.
Tiny Bee roosting on the aromatic dried out Basil.
Injured or deformed Hopper, same spot for a week. The one on the left is how they look normally.
And not one problem between them … evidently.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Travelling Ant
Out on my wandering in the local byways I often come across something unique, that I only ever see once.
As I was crossing this fallen – with a little help – fence I noticed there was an occupant of unusual character.
The ant, a kind I haven’t seen before, was using the fence line as a highway across the otherwise difficult terrain and appeared in no hurry.
It had been dry for a few days so I wet the line where the ant would pass and when they met it stopped to take a sip. Free moisture can be a rarity in the wild.
An ant might travel the equivalent of many miles for a drink, but not today. Manna from the sky, and it clearly enjoyed it, stopping to sip a while before resuming its journey.
I could wonder where that ant was going but I know already. It’s going home, if it’s not already there.
Small, instinctive, non self reflective mind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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