Sweetness …
What’s this curious structure on my leaf, hmmm? – Click the pix for a better view.
Is there someone in there, behind this cold hard shell?
Hmmm, can’t tell. Let’s follow this thread, see where it goes.
Hmmm, how did I get over here now, when I was just over there?
Never mind, no harm done. Time to meditate … focus attention.
Look inside, see what comes and let it go. In the space inside.
Inside and out, everything happens in space. Space is … no problem.
That’s our nature, when you get up close and leave the emotion out of it. Sweet …
It’s sweet to listen to the rain fall on the tin roof, light at first then loud and strong.
Sweet to sit in the semi dark on a warm evening, nothing going on but the sense of things.
No need for anything else, no need to think about it …
The simple life, here and now.
For a jumping spider.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Garden Buddies …
The latest from the garden …
Click the Pictures for a better view. … Young Kookaburra, he’s matured in the few months since he first showed up in the garden.
Young Butcherbird, his mum brought him around one day and he returns regularly for a bite to eat.
Big beetle in the night. Out of the fallen trees used to fence my little garden, that are rotting now.
Storm lillies – lovely name. They come out after the rain – we’ve had a lot lately. Nice to see them in unexpected places.
A Tern of some kind. Down by the Victoria Point pier, where the Welcome Swallows live.
One of the ducks that pass by the back door regularly. They come and they go.
Bluebottle fly, by the Blue Banded Bee’s nest site.
A more mature Kookaburra. Standing still for a portrait shot.
Orange Tail Resin Bee. Finishing off her nest site, sealing in the young of the next generation – protection from predators and parasites.
At any time I can walk out into the garden and often one or more of the many visitors are there waiting for a chat, or a bite to eat.
It’s ok to feed the wildlife, so we are told, after being told not to for so long. I never listened anyway. Just like when they invented margarine, no thanks.
Thing is, not to feed them too much or the wrong stuff. My friends in the garden keep coming back looking fitter and healthier than before. We do it for our mutual benefit. They enjoy the food.
I enjoy their presence, the absence of any complications of mind – no more thinking or emotion than the situation calls for – that can be observed as instinctive intelligence. Yes, nature is intelligent.
Just not like we like to think we are, intelligent. We are obviously animals, with an animal body that functions instinctively. But we have also added a thinking emotional layer that obscures our natural intelligence.
It is this natural intelligence, combined with our capacity to be objectively aware of and realise it – without the need to personalise or analyse or emotionalise – that gave rise to the prescription of a ‘week in the country’ would do you good.
Look around, looks like the world could do with a week in the country.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Bullfrog …
Croaking … Gotta call him a bull, just look at that face. And his call is definitely a croaking, and loud.
In my backyard, a garden safari. Even a little smile, at the corner of his lips.
You don’t get much closer than this to a frog. *Click on the pictures to open them in a new tab, on desktop is best.
There’s a house being built behind me, for a good while now. And in the process it seems one or more of these giant green tree frogs has moved in.
Even from 300m he, or she, can be clearly heard. If the builders ever move in they will know they have a close and noisy neighbour.
The other night, after it had rained for a few days, the croaking began in earnest. Then there was another from a distance, and another nearby.
I was out with the torch at some point and one was only 10m away, silent. A little later I tracked it to my makeshift frog pond – where it stayed for a few days.
After a few days the big frog was gone from my pond and the croaking stopped.
They must have found each other.
My pied magpie, hangs around my backyard. Likes to join in whatever I’m doing, might get fed.
Might not …
The male of a pair of ducks that pass by regularly in their constant search for food on this acreage property.
Calendula, lovely yellow …
And she who must be fed. He is always getting out of her way when there’s food to be had. She might have babies on the way.
Pretty little thing …
A contrary view. Upside down pelican. Sees things differently.
While out one night I almost stepped on this beauty. About five feet long, as soon as she noticed me she pulled back. We gave each other space enough.
Orange tail resin bee. I’ve had the same hotels for years, moved house four times in last five, and after two of them the bees returned – if they had ever left. Did they wait for the right conditions to be born?
Putting the finishing touches to the nest site. After sealing it with resin she camouflaged it with sandy clay or mud.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Changing Tunes …
Bluebottle on red rag background. In the dead of night they only fly in emergencies.
Curlew, keeping a eye on the sky for predators, and an eye on her little ones for their protection.
Caterpillar on wild native violet in the garden. No worries …
Kookaburra, keeping an eye out for whatever furthers his prospects for survival. It’s instinctive after all.
Green head ant, just being an ant this day.
Butcher-bird, seems to be a youngster a long time now.
Small eyed fly, or big bellied with a humped back. A fly with an eye nevertheless.
And not least, a huntsman spider. A youngster too. Plenty in the garden I have growing.
It was the end of winter just past and by all accounts summer began. As if spring wasn’t to happen this year, and all the gardens creatures were a little confused.
But something changed. There was a rebound from the sense of summer and we are now in spring-proper.
With clouds and rain and wind and sunshine, and lower temps. It’s a lovely springtime.
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What changed? The Earth sang for 9 days, a single note, as if a bell had been struck, and that bell was the Earth – click here. A single note, the way one might use a single sound in meditation, to pull all other sounds or vibrations into alignment, or harmony. Or just to drown them out.
It was a momentous event, that went generally unnoticed.
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Then it was announced the Earth would host a second moon for two months from late September – click here. A mini moon the size of a big bus is not momentous, but it is symbolic, and it came from an asteroid belt around the sun called Arjuna. Symbolic of a helping hand to what our moon already does for us, perhaps, lending rhythm or pulse to the Earth.
So, that’s what changed. The Earth sang or cried out, under the weight of her children, us, and the sun sent a messenger, a child of Arjuna, to aid in changing the fundamental sound and rhythm of the Earth.
It’s a song, if you can hear it. In the sense and sensation, inside.
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Arjuna is a central character in the great Indian epic poem, a treatise on how to live rightly, and with purpose, called the Mahabharata. Arjuna is the son of the warrior god Indra, and in the poem he is going to war – where else. The same war we all live, it’s just the times, ways and forms are different now.
It’s the war we wage, or is waged upon us, that we call living. To get through, to be free of pain and suffering, to get back home.
That’s all …
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Why not … a new song singing now, aligning discordant notes to a brighter springtime.
Ain’t that nice … to see now, what may or may not be now.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Welcome …
Welcome Swallow. Welcome the spring after a long cold – relatively speaking – winter.
Early morning and the days activity has only just begun.
And curious too, wondering ‘what is this attention directed at me …’
Victoria Point jetty before sunrise, where the Welcome Swallow lives out the winter.
Sun rise …
Welcome swallow, so called as it welcomes in the spring down south of Australia. So it probably migrates north from there for the warmer winter in Queensland and up into the Northern Territory.
It’s a native bird so it knows its way around. Considered to be lucky as it brings the warmer weather with it after winter, not that people from the northern hemisphere would consider our winter cold. But cold it gets …
In the common psyche they are also associated with hope, renewal and protection. The power of suggestion and belief is strong. But there is a power in the presence of these little creatures. The quiet beauty of birds.
They build nests out of mud and grass or other suitable material, in all the nooks and crannies of the pier at Victoria Point. Can be seen in any daylight tracking and catching food on the wing. And the cyclones and king tides don’t get them.
Great little survivors.
But not to worry, ‘I can fly away at the first sign of trouble.’
No trouble here though. Just a quiet time for the little ones to gather themselves for the coming days work.
Ready or not … Sun is rising and it’s time to spread those wings.
Ok, not just yet …
Hello little one …
Ready …
Steady …
Go …
Hahaha …
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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Cold Cold Night …
Was a bracing cold night on the way to and from the grey metal letterbox I rarely check except by torchlight.
My shadow firmly outlined under the bright moon, not quite full, as I walked the long dusty driveway, careful not to abandon my footfall to the uneven stone studded surface.
Stars faded in a bright night sky, a jet plane blinking red and white as it passed above, its distant engines moaning faintly, suggestive of other times, other places.
Blank faces the other side of glass, no names, no life.
Just a grey memory now.
Time passes.
Time’s gone.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look …
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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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Nature's Place 
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