Coloured Light
Walking the garden at night with a torch, to see what shows, here and there a little reflective colour glows.
Holding on upside down, a precarious perch, for you or for me, nowhere to go but for certain, of thought it is free.
And after the flash fired and lit up the night, again and again, I went to bed, everything to me was all right.
When from my darkened sleep I went, there she still was, as the sun rose, the night rent, holding a silent pose.
The colour did burst anew, yellow rose, or sun, who knows, hit the flash again for a few.
Then, as the work done was my best, I thought I would give it a rest.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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Our Leonine Nature
Water, one of life’s simple pleasures. The sense, or essence, of it …
Bees, what would we do without them. I have heard people use feather dusters in some places where the bees have died out, to pollinate the crop.
These are a healthy lot too, looking strong and well groomed. Lion-like with their big manes – is what they remind me of.
That they are feral, gone wild in a local forest, might be significant to their health. Having nobody exploiting them.
No doubt they have their difficulties but they can always be seen to take clean water from near the flow.
Never doubting their common purpose or function, as bees.
Being free of our questionable chemistry.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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Watering The Ants
This nocturnal ant handicapped by the dented head.
Here in Oz the ant is in charge of turning the earth, as in other places it is the worm. That’s how it looks to me. Everywhere I look there are ants, always on the move, busy, busy, busy. They are better built for working the dry soil, with a little help from the occasional rain.
There are so many kinds of ant I have lost track, as if I was ever so inclined. Here are a few I invited to stop for a picture, by placing a drop of sugar-water along their path.
Every thing works its patch, you and me included. And everything needs the right kind of nourishment.
A little nectar is a passing heaven, to an ant.
Sensational …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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Pretty On Pink
A Green Shield Bug flits from place to place around the garden. If it doesn’t find what it wants in one place off it goes to another. But what does a bug want? Food, shelter and a mate, what else …
It doesn’t know to want anything it doesn’t need. Could it possibly just enjoy the colour in the sunshine, playing in the garden. As many other garden dwellers can be seen or seem to do.
Is there any conscious self awareness in a bug, or is it an instinctive organic robot. Maybe a messenger of a greater intelligence, the earth perhaps.
And anything born has the potential of its mother, and more.
Let’s not dismiss the little things.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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And Now …
… for a little light entertainment from the wilds.
The simple elegance and beauty in the form and being of … a beetle.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on a picture for a closer look.
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Things That Fly …
Zebra Bee. Ok, not really. A native resting on a cold afternoon.
An unusual fly warming up by the light at night.
Too cold to fly away, resting on the grass.
Racing Red and blue/black winged Wasp.
Long legged fly enjoying the rotting fruit.
Red Assassin Bug, hunting on the flowers other creatures eat.
Bee echo …
Assassin nymph chasing native bee.
Hoverfly in the spiders grasp. Bye, bye fly.
Mating time for the ants.
Doli fly in the afternoon.
Honey Bee meets Spider, usually ends bad for the bee – which is good for the spider.
Mighty wasp. She was seeking nesting sites around the ants feasting on fruit.
Asleep in the field, not far to travel for breakfast.
Things that get overlooked, in the garden or field and on the computer. There are so many images of encounters that are never seen but once.
It may serve as a reminder of the unique character of the individuals within the one amazing nature, everything with a place.
Nothing remains the same, even when change is imperceptibly incremental the movement is always towards ‘better’.
As long as we don’t give in to the dark side, and even that serves, has its place.
And time runs out, things die, nothing remains to change.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Luna …
… tic, tic.
The moon is on the rise and with it the pressure of tide in all things, everything rises and falls with the coming and going of the moon.
Old time lunatic asylums were so named for the propensity of the inmates to agitate with the waxing of the moon. The moon acted on their mentality, pulled it out, magnified it.
The moon magnifies or activates what is already there, in the mind. What you acknowledge is what is there, more and more.
Be careful what you acknowledge, or you might end up a lunatic, tic, tic.
When the madness is gone there’s only the pressure.
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Look up, see the milky light of the full disc on the cold dark blue sky.
The quiet emptiness, emptied of human mind.
What a beauty that is.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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The Hunter
The same day I found The Huntress I found her male counterpart, in much the same way, by searching the places I would hide during the day if … I were a night hunter.
I took the loosened bark down from the side of the tree and turned it gently but quickly as it came away so whatever might be on the other side became visible and exposed, perhaps triggering a freeze response and not flight or fright. There, sitting stock still, was a huge male Huntsman.
I didn’t know how long I had before he took off so I set to photographing him from the available angles, his back to the tree, where else – not to expose him unnecessarily, it’s a balance of forces applied.
And after a minute or so shooting, just as I took my eye off him to adjust something for no more than a second or two, he was gone, deftly disappearing back into the hideaway that is the debris at the foot of his tall tree.
His tree is about 50 metres from her tree, a world away it seems, but there is no reason to believe they didn’t meet.
Little things have their ways.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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The Huntress
In the nearby remnant rainforest there is still sign of insect life. In fact it never really goes away, just hides out from our winter’s cold, and other dangers.
So, hiding as they are these days, the obvious thing to do is seek – and ye shall find, seeking? Not this time, this time I found two magnificent members of the Huntsman tribe.
One female and the other male, in similar places on different trees, hiding behind the loosening bark that the gum trees drop every year. Even trees shed the old to be new.
As I carefully removed a section of loose bark she was alarmed at the intrusion. She ran rapidly up and down the piece of bark once and I thought she was going to do a classic and run up my arm, but she quickly found and settled into the only safe and defensible nook available and went statue still. A protected position from where she was only partially visible and could see any approaching danger – me.
But I was no danger to her, I placed the bark down on the leaf litter, careful not to knock it on anything so she wouldn’t be frightened and bolt. Keeping my movements slow and deliberate I got the camera assembled and moved in for the shoot, what was presented.
This is the female Huntsman, Huntress. A magnificent creature, as impressive as any of the massive familiar animals. And beautiful, with streaked silver hair cradling her eight simple black eyes, massive death dealing fangs and armour spiked to secure prey or repel attackers.
God made thing. From the inscrutable formlessness embracing and upholding all things, a Queen in spider form.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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