A Time For …
… bees again?
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There are Banana trees in the back yard that the Possum and Bats, Flying Foxes they are called, love to eat from when the fruit is ripe enough. I’m watchful to get a few myself this year, as last. The trouble with the trees though is they are big and one recent day I went out and noticed one of them had been cut down, the one that was about to fall on the neighbours shed, that I was going to cut down anyway. Well, a little something I didn’t have to do, no harm.
And I have had to cut down a few of them to keep them from becoming a nuisance, to the civilisation of back yards bordering onto each other, or falling on the clothes line, or the person below. One I cut down was about, what, 20ft tall? And it fell towards the Frangipani, one with lovely red flowers, and broke an extensive piece off it. So, not to waste or leave it for the passers by that took last years cuttings I planted it in the front garden. I’ve been doing a lot of work in the front garden, for the flowers and bugs and photos.
It’s not as if I haven’t done this before but such a large piece, about five feet tall and branched, I wasn’t sure it would work. I plant it in the ground, in a spot it fits, some might say ‘it likes’, and water it enough to keep it from drying out and losing its leaves. It seems to be working; at least it has new shoots and is showing no ill signs so far, maybe a little soft at the extremities.
What I do every day is fill a bucket with water and every now and then go and pour enough to drench the ground, a brown clay soil, and as I said it seems to be working and in about 10 or so years will provide shade in that corner from the setting sun.
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The thing is whenever I go to the bucket and look in I often find some creature that has fallen in the water and hasn’t found a way out yet. So I take care of that first, put a finger under the creature and bring it to the top of a branch and let it off to dry out on the Frangipani tip. Where it sits and grooms itself, wanders about, tastes the water, and sometimes falls back in the bucket below – that’s livin.
The other thing is most of what I find are bees, tiny bees that I have seen nowhere else but in the water bucket. Isn’t that an odd thing? They are less than 1cm long, 10mm, barely visible except for something to see them against. If it wasn’t for all that preceded it I would not know of these particular bees, the ones from the yellow water bucket.
How one thing always leads to another, everything has consequences. Some can be predicted, and some only generally so. But the wonder is in the not knowing. You can try and work it all out but what a mental waste, just wait and see.
You never know what nature is going to show up or where. But one thing’s for sure; you’ll see more of it if you are out in it.
Whatever ‘it’ is. Sense, nature, getting the hands dirty, seeing, smelling, doing whatever.
It’s a pleasure.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Bee on Sunset
It’s warm these days and not so easy to capture a shot of these very fast moving bees, especially out in the wild. So I wait for them at dusk and watch for where they land, and fly and land again. It’s never as simple as taking one spot and sticking to it. They need to settle in like any creature, in their way, moving to and fro until they are right. No more disturbance, inside, and ready for the night.
So, because the temperature often determines how active our bees are, there is a very short window of opportunity, two of them with natural light, and the best one is at dusk.
Waiting to the last minute is an option, or working what I can from a certain darkness, maneuvering the roost for the BG as I go, until I get something that is not the same as hundreds I can get without the work.
So, after a little work, here is the first Blue Banded Bee of the year. On the setting sun. A fitting BG for such a tireless little wonder.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Gold
Green gold, red, blue …
I prefer to call them Jewel Beetles, christmas beetles they are usually called. But christmas is a hoax, the usurpation of what was once the celebration of a passing or seasonal change – with a knowledge of the heavens and earth as its basis, instead of the economic and psychological exploitation it is today – the same thing really, exploitation – the way we are.
Well, we can simply acknowledge the good, whatever it is. The starry night, a windy day, rain in the afternoon, the colourful flowers. The amusing character of the bugs in the garden. A partner if there is one. So many things, small and not so …
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They favoured the fern for eating at the time so I worked with that. Gotta take what you’re given, if you can. And so I present to you … one of the wonders of the earth – of which there are countless. A springtime character.
Gold, a colour in the psyche on the way down, or is it up, to a place that’s not this one.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Dark Neon Beauty
She is a most elusive creature in my experience. I have probably seen only one other of these bees and she was on the move, too fast to track or shoot. When I got back from a week away I went to a few places I know to see if the bees had started to show. I saw roosting Nomads, in numbers, and increasing still, but only one Leafcutter and no Blue Banded bees.
Then, after a few days looking, I saw this little black dot swaying on the grass tops in the wind at dusk and I knew here was something new. I approached slowly so as not to spook the creature and got close enough to see the blue and black beauty she is. But she was wary and took to the air and was lost (to my older eyes) in the clutter of background plants and shadows.
I went away and came back a few times only for the same thing to happen but was pleased to see the perch had been selected; she was coming back to it after being disturbed. So I got up early next morning and arrived before the sun came up and there she was. Quietly, gently I approached from the side I wanted to start shooting from, getting lower as I got nearer, camera ready in hand. And just as I was reaching out to gently grip the stalk of grass off she flew.
Again at dusk, the same day, I went back to the spot and there she was. As I got closer I saw the first Blue Banded Bee of this season and it was buzzing the Neon Cuckoo Bee, literally. The BBB flew up to the face of the NCB and the little dark beauty took no notice. The BBB did this a few times before flying off to its own roost, an indication of their relationship no doubt.
I got down on one knee, a courtesy you could say, and went to work with her for about an hour before the light was gone and I was pleased with the meeting, a privileged encounter you could say.
The next day she was gone and there hasn’t been another. Another season perhaps, who knows.
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Speaking of Dark Beauty, I am reminded of the same essential quality in the people, our mystic or spiritual reality. Even though the world looks to be a violent and cruel place, and real justice as elusive as a NCB on a sunny afternoon, all is right and all is changing.
Even what the world would call a lost cause will bear a fruit that can only add to the good of the whole in time. A lost cause can turn to a noble reality, in time. This is not an easy thing to see.
But once it’s known it’s just a matter of never giving up on that dark beauty, by being awake to it, in the small things. And one day …
There … even in the brightest sunlight, dark beauty.
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Or is it just a little drama, to entertain, while the work is done?
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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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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A Jewel of Harlequins
On the white flowered Hibiscus in the nearby bush is a small herd of bugs, Harlequins they are called, don’t know why – possibly for the distinctive symmetrical markings on the ‘face’. These ones are real beauties; they go through many different colours in their little lives, blues, greens and reds. And there are times when they can be found with developing wings that make them look like something from a futuristic car show, and very elegant.
Anyway, these last days they are this wonderful blue with hues and patches of green and red and iridescent, overlaid on a very purposeful looking form. A very attractive little jewel of the forest.
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You have to know where to find them as they don’t appear on all Hibiscus plants, only a few I know of. And then you have to know how to handle them, with care of course. But they also respond to a kind of attention so it’s possible to get a few shots without disturbing them unduly.
And when they are done sitting I put then back exactly where I find them. This one is on my stick, the one I use for stabilising the camera at times is also good for shooting on.
I am usually in the nature just for a walk these days as the little people are shy or just not around after the drastic weather of the last year, and health permitting – other bugs I am catching are from visiting children, no fun at all, the bugs caught this way.
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It’s a simple pleasure of mine, this walking and seeing or sensing. To see the colours and form, the movement and the life in it all.
And then I go home, to tend the wildy garden I have encouraged and nurtured.
Just for a while now.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Dry Time
The long year of rain that washed the bugs away has been followed by a long season of dry, and few bugs are emerging that I can find, not even the Ticks. I had anticipated something of the sort with my gardening work, lots of seeds sown and plants watered with a compost area for bugs to eat and congregate in. The Possum likes the fruit as well. So it’s not all void of creatures to enjoy, albeit tiny creatures mostly.
Even so, everywhere I go there are maturing well fed spiders. It looks like food a plenty but could be a survival strategy, get a net up to catch what you can while there is any catching to be done. But we’ll see how things unfold.
What is coming can be predicted in the big picture, more or less, but the details are unknowable in their timing and context. That wonderful unknown.
There is nothing wrong with there being so few bugs, it’s just different. Last year they were so plentiful at the same times there are few or none this year.
The weather is very different this year, wetter, colder, windier and dryer at different times. And still nature is what it is behind, unmade, of a greater power than man, waving in time.
The one grace of existence, the unmade shining through.
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And here are a couple pix anyway. What a little wonder. And no sign of hunger. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Petals of Pearl
I’ve been seeding the garden with all sorts for a year or so, not knowing what may grow, and every now and then a little wonder appears through the overgrowth. This one has been budding for about a week and finally opened yesterday, some – half of the petals anyway. And today it opened up completely to the spring sunshine.
It’s a little beauty and I’ve been working it to see what happens, image-wise. That’s one of the things I love about nature and photography, I never know exactly how a shot is going to picture – there’s the shot and then there’s the picture produced. And I don’t want to know.
A wonderfully creative way to spend a few minutes, or hours, in sense. To see what a flower looks like and is. The creases and shadows on the white that give it its texture, the shape of the petals that give them their magical quality. And the yellow, heart of the flower, giving up to the prince of light – the Sun.
Yellow face I’ll call it, in a halo of pearly white.
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It doesn’t have to ‘make’ sense, only to be it.
Whatever that means.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Nature's Place 
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