Devilish Monkery
These beetles have been having their season lately, showing up around the house at all hours, head down – hiding in plain sight. Not easy to get a shot of the face as they usually have their eyes down, flat to the surface.
There are a few individuals here. One from the outside light I leave on in the evenings, one from the front garden on some dead flowers, and another from a drinking glass from one of the rooms upstairs – I gave it a little honey on some dry leaves to pose for me – before I let it go, and it did for a little while. It had to be tricked.
It’s a beautifully streamlined shape with head tucked up, the kind we design in wind tunnels for fast and stable flight. Easy for it to pass unnoticed.
In one shot in particular I am reminded of a hooded monk with a devilish mask on – of course that’s its ‘real’ face.
But whatever it appears to be it is no less one more of nature’s amazing little wonders.
Thank you beetle, thank you nature.
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The mask sticks, doesn’t it. The one we wear.
And then we search and search for how to get it off …
… or put on another one …… and call it the spiritual life. ((:
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Little Wizard
Down the track and into the field of fresh cut grass and the smell is lovely. On the right is a short Acacia bush with two magical creatures living on it. They’ve got to be of the magical realm to be dressed up as they are, Mother of Pearl feathers on a shiny black leather coat. And what wonderful feet they have, multi purpose no doubt – three joints, pads and a very business like hook on the end. What a wonderful snout and antennae too, all the better to sniff and sense, near and far, what’s on the wind in their wonderful little world – actual and metaphorical, as magical creatures see.
Perhaps they are a couple, or good friends. Though they were wandering around alone, but on the same bush – which is significant, of what I’m not sure. The obvious perhaps? Either way they were friendly little creatures who readily hopped on my finger to say hello.
Hello? Yes, in their way. A taste here, a sniff there, a sensing all around. Of what I’m not sure, maybe me, just me. They sensed no danger anyway, and I gave them none. Beautiful little magical fellows of the wood and field, fellows to me. Fellows of the same Nature.
What magic were they weaving today I wonder? Hmmm! I know, delight! They were casting spells of delight. And I know this how? Because I was delighted, how else!
Yes, delight, a blessing from the magical realm from two of its wonderful little messengers. Or were they wizards after all, casting such magical spells?
Yes, wonderful little wizards, to me.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Tick Tick
Gi’s a hug!
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Nobody’s favourite animal, the tick. Except another tick, maybe.
This one is in shock after I brought it from upstairs wrapped in a tissue. It had hitched a ride home on my clothes and lucky enough I saw it before it dug in. Not so lucky a couple other times recently when one had dug in, hip and back of head. These ticks can cause paralysis and death if left long enough, the former would not be nice. The odd thing is you don’t feel them until they are dislodged and the site becomes swollen, itchy and often a running sore from some exotic bacteria.
You can see its eating gear between the two flaps, it looks to have serrated or barbed edges that make it easy to get in and difficult to get out. The flaps to either side open out for it to insert into the body and suck away, and deliver a neurotoxin at the same time. This one is a mother too.
I have seen them in the long grass, sitting at the tip with outstretched ‘arms’ waiting to embrace some passerby. These creatures have such a grip they won’t be flicked off easily, like Velcro, something to do with the little white pads on the end of the legs – I reckon.
Ambush parasites, relentless and tenacious – that’s just nature, at times – our nature. If you walk in the rainforest, or the concrete jungle, it’s only a matter of time before one grabs you – if you need the experience.
Everything has its place in our nature, that’s for sure.
You just have to deal with it when it bites. ((:
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
‘Shield’ Bug
When I first approached this bug I could see it was sitting on eggs and I didn’t want to frighten it off. So I tested its response to my presence by bringing my finger towards it from above and moving it from side to side. It responded by moving with my finger so the eggs were shielded from the direction of my finger. I thought, maybe that’s why they are called shield bugs, they shield their eggs from predation – so it seems.
I noticed she had her proboscis down on the eggs and thought she would be checking the condition of the eggs, not unlike any mum would feel her prospective young. I went back from time to time over the next week but there was no change so I didn’t try for more shots, only the side angles available without risking serious disturbance, and I wanted to see the young when they hatched.
Then, ten days after the first shot, through downpour after downpour – when it rains here it pours, I saw something had changed, there were fewer eggs. So I had a closer look and she was eating them, the eggs.
She hadn’t moved in all the time I had observed and she must have been starving, she was that unsteady on her feet. Maybe the eggs proved nonviable, some of the eggs look off in #4 and none of them looked like anything was developing inside as could be expected, and she was just doing what came natural, living to breed another day.
Today the only sign anything happened on the spot was the minimal debris where the eggs had been attached to the leaf.
The natural creatures are naturally conservationist. You can’t judge the God made.
Waste not, want not.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Him ‘n Her
At first I only saw him, standing on the edge of the leaf waving his front legs in the air, with their bright white extremities. I looked across the chasm between the leaves for what he could possibly be waving to and I saw her, not waving back, much.
After a little waving, mostly by him, they got together and that leg waving stopped but another leg waving started, the pair of legs behind the first – held akimbo.
Anyway, long story short, they mated and parted. Then she went about grooming herself and he started waving those front legs again.
Sound familiar?
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
King of Flies – Robber of Life
Burp!
At a small clearing in the forest the grass had grown long and green with the recent rains. Ideal breeding ground for some creatures, ideal hunting ground for others.
Large by the usual size of flies around here, this hunter reigned. It moved easily with grace, never seeming to falter in take-off, capture or landing. There was an efficiency about it, no unnecessary movement or sound, a consummate conservationist designed for stealth.
He sat high in the long untidy grass in wait for something to emerge from the dark shadows below. As soon as a suitable creature, unaware, was within reach up he went to capture with those long spiny legs – the better to grip with – and deliver the ‘coup de grace’ to the creature with a sharp and deadly lancet sheathed in its strong stubby proboscis, usually to somewhere behind the head, via a cocktail of neurotoxin and digestive enzymes that rapidly paralyse and consume.
Cranefly was the prey of incidence today, not too big and not too small, and available in abundance right now – it also has very long legs that help trap it in the hunters embrace, and it moves at a speed and pattern that was easy to track.
The Robber, or Assassin Fly – so called for the way it quickly and silently snatches the life from its prey – was well fed this day.
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It pays to be present to see what is now, and not occupied in the memory – which is then and a bridge to a robber of a different kind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
This Little Beauty …
… landed on my leg the other day. I gave it a finger to climb on and moved it to the nearby picnic table. I did think it is a wasp and they do sting, but not all are aggressive and some of their stings are little more than a minor irritation.
And besides, it was a sprightly little thing and has a sweetness about it. So I had faith in this little character.
Faith, in the innocence of another creature, is a pleasure to have. Faith, the kind that moves mountains, from the inner landscape.
Faith, not an easy thing to come by for a man of experience. It’s all there is in the end.
Faith, in nothing in particular. A little of it is good for you, and me. ((:
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Rainbow Wanderer
I found this beetle in the dark of the rainforest and gave it a little honey to keep it in one place for a minute, to get a shot – and I enjoy feeding the little things when I do. Then these black ants came along and chased it off. But it must have been very hungry because it came back to the honey and risked attack by the ants – who wouldn’t hesitate if that’s what came upon them. Instead though, they made room at the table. A battle they couldn’t win perhaps. Or just a case of knowing ones place and putting first things first – food/survival before risk of injury.
An unusual truce indeed.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
A Little Blue
Isn’t it amazing, the form, the architecture and colour, the design of a simple fly.
Might make you think there is more to it than meets the eye.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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