Nature's Place

You can’t beat the ant for sheer grit and determination. This slender legged creature was observed pulling its find over a distance of two metres in about one minute. The fly it’s taking back to its nest is five or more times its own size and weight and the two metres distance it was observed is the equivalent of you or me pulling five times our own weight a hundred metres or so. I don’t know about you but I’d be lucky to move something that heavy even one inch.

The stress on its feet must be enormous. Do ants have feet?

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Water has been pouring from the sky for days now. The garden is flooded, the forest is flooded, and the seas are high and rough. Everything is getting a thorough soaking and it’s wonderful. Everything is just soaking it up, the plants and the earth. All the animals are sheltering in their favourite places and people are indoors doing indoor things until the sun shines again, as it always does.

Today is the day I do my shopping, basically because I live forty kilometres from the nearest shopping centre that has what I want. That’s an eighty kilometre round trip and the cost of fuel has gone up dramatically recently so I keep my use of the car to a minimum. Driving along in the rain is almost blinding at times. Even on high speed the wipers only give me a clear view for a couple seconds at a time and then it’s a blur for a few seconds. Could be dangerous. But I love driving through the water and feel the tyres hit the resistance, hear the water spray up into the car and clean it underneath, and see the spray, whoosh, on either side of me. Great fun.

The only animals I’ve seen outdoors the last couple days are the birds, the ones with young to feed. Today I heard the urgent cries of the young butcherbird and went out to have a look. There it was on the drainpipe under the eave of the roof, looking sodden from the rain. The parent was on the clothes line and when I appeared to get too close to the young one it called to him and flew away and the young one followed.

Some of the birds are having a rough time of it in the strong winds. I’ve seen them blown wildly about, but it is their element after all isn’t it. Is a maggie dodging branches as it is blown between two trees in the back garden down past the water tanks, that box was blown in from I don’t know where.

When the weather is really too rough they know better than to fly. Some don’t though, whether because of experience or the lack of it, or hunger drives them – birds don’t carry much in the way of energy reserves. Or one could risk it and go out hunting while it’s calm because there are young to be fed, and then have to find its way back to the nest after the weather darkens again.

It’s dangerous weather for birds, not being able to fly safely. And with cats, dogs and snakes about it’s a dangerous time for them indeed. Because flying is their only escape from any of these animals.

The other creatures that love this rainy windy weather are the frogs. You can tell they just love the rain the way they sit there soaking it up, contented creatures. The rain helps frogs in other ways than the essential but simple need of water.

They can travel more easily in the fluid of the rain, which means they can travel further so they can spread out and so increase their long term chances of survival. The rain also provides all other creatures with similar opportunities and more insect’s means more food to the frog. Great news, for the frog.

But after all the rain we’ve been having I’d say even the frogs are under shelter.

I love the sound of the rain on the surfaces of the house, mostly on the roof here since there is a veranda around the house. The sound of rain on the roof as it falls in differing volumes and at different intensities blown by a fickle and sometimes steady wind reminds me of the simple sensation in the body.

That tingling I see and feel inside when I’ve closed my eyes and my mind is quiet. Seen all the easier when I’m sitting in the dark just listening, listening in the silence of the night, of inside.

And by the looks of it there will be fresh mushrooms for dinner tomorrow. Yum! Another gift of the rain and the earth. After any significant rain mushrooms appear in the back garden, usually enough for a meal or two. And they’re free.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

Mooball National Park is a well kept secret. It’s on the map but when I first went looking for it I found no signs for it, anywhere. Without a topographical map what I had to do was look at the road map for the general location and try the various roads and tracks until I found it.

I found the entrance just into the Burringbar ranges on the way to Murwillumbah. It’s just a dirt track off the old Highway One and it’s very easy to miss. And dangerous to navigate to from the south.

The actual park is mountainous, as far as I know there is no flat country here. This means almost nobody comes here so there are none of the advantages of a much visited place such as developed trails, lookouts or parking and picnic areas. That’s not a bad thing it’s just a fact. I enjoy the places people don’t often go to, as long as I physically can that is.

It’s also rainforest country. Because of mountainous terrain to catch the clouds and the greenery to help produce them these hills are often shrouded in mist and right now it’s very wet, having been raining on and off for a few weeks.

One of the effects of this rain is the trees soak it up and take the opportunity to expand and grow which often means they shed the old inflexible bark that protected them since the last rains. This leaves them exposed in their fresh new forest colours.

The road through it is very steep in places and hilly almost every other place, though there are a few areas on the side for parking the car. There are fire trails throughout so at least there is some easy walking, it’s not necessary to break a trail or follow the ones made by motorbikes over the years.

This one is well out of the way. It’s on top of a hill where there was once a house and now there’s a radio mast, and goes down into the valley below where there are a few small farms.

I discovered an interesting looking mushroom on this trail. It’s furry, or shaggy haired, a unique expression of fungi.

These hills are around three to four hundred metres high and the walking is more like climbing at times and I love it. Once the body is used to the exertion it’s a pleasure to walk here. There is always some new nook or cranny to be explored or some old one in a new season, it’s always different.

You can even see the ocean from places here, it’s that horizontal white line in the distance, right of centre.

I went on from this place to one of the trails I know and parked the car, put my hat on and got my trusty stick from the back seat. It’s just a light young tree left to cure in its skin for a while, then peeled of its bark and sanded for smoothness and cut to size – around five foot long.

I find it invaluable these days, as an aid to walking and climbing and for touching things at a distance to see if anything moves. It’s also handy at times for steadying my camera hand, though you wouldn’t know it to look at some of the pix.

It was nice and easy walking on this trail. Cool, wet, with the occasional shower, and relaxing. As I got further up the trail I started hearing squeaks that sounded like frogs calling to each other. The sounds were coming from the side of the trail where the rainwater runs down so I stopped to check it out.

I was hunkered down facing the bank with my feet just in the water listening for the location of the sounds. They seemed to be coming from very distinct areas but when I moved the leaf litter I found only more leaf litter and dirt. I checked a number of areas like this but found no sign of the frogs at all. So I let them go, maybe they will show themselves another time.

I have heard it said the first is the hardest to find, but once you have seen one they are then all over the place. Well it’s true the first, of anything, is hardest to do. Like overcoming the primarily physical barrier of climbing the highest or hardest mountain.

Or the barrier, primarily of will or resistance, to the detachment from mind – to realise no mind.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

It has been raining heavily on and off for a few days now. Where I am, on an open plain one kilometre from the beach, the weather usually comes in from the sea. This has meant I haven’t been able to go very far into the bush here before there is so much water I can’t go on. The tracks are sodden in many places and under water in others.

On my walk today I very soon came upon a big spider making her web in a small clearing in the bush. This is the biggest spider of its kind I have yet seen. its body must have been at least an inch across. A golden orb spider. Its silk is a golden colour and her web was big enough to accommodate a number of smaller spiders, maybe males, or just hitchhikers – opportunists taking advantage of her great work in building such a magnificent web.

At the western end of the old house where I live there are two rainwater tanks. One is very old and the other relatively new. I take my water from the new one and the old one is used as an overflow tank. The drainpipes from the house roof run into the top of the new tank and this is where the green tree frogs live, in the pipes, above the inspection hole.

I have also made a little house for the frogs next to the inspection hole. Only one frog has used this as far as I know, a few days ago – perhaps when a lot of debris came down the drain pipe in a heavy downpour. It’s nice to see ones work appreciated.

The old tank is literally falling apart, the top is rusted at the edge and there are a number of significant leaks. The last tenant tried to patch it up but it’s so old any effective patching only serves to put more pressure on another area and a new leak develops.

I just leave it as it is and put water tolerant plants in the way of the leaks, and receptacles to catch the water for the green frogs to bathe in, they do love a good soaking when the weather has been dry.

When the old tank leaks bad enough, that is when the mozzies can get in to breed, something will have to be done. Until then it is a resource for the natural plant, animal and insect life.

I saw an assassin bug on the rhubarb leaf the other day. The assassin didn’t do much, just moving slowly about his patch of leaf.

There was a little neon green fly about 1cm long. There are many of these flies about recently and not all of them are green. Some have red and some are yellow, all with black stripes. I have also seen a bit of blue amongst them. Or is it the other way round – all black with different coloured stripes, green, yellow, blue and red.

They dart around the greenery chasing each other in a merry dance indeed. But only on the big leaves, where they can see each other I suspect, or where I can see them. I even saw one running on its long dainty legs after an ant a fraction of its own size and when the ant disappeared to the underside of the leaf it lost interest; maybe it has a short attention span?

There were also these two creatures mating. I have no idea what they are but I’ve seen them around the garden for the last week or so, maybe not the exact same two but closely related. Another kind of fly. Nature just keeps appearing in one form after another, there seems no end to the variety, beauty and wonder of it all.

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery

This morning, the first thing I noticed was the mats I have on the floors had been disturbed. They had been tossed about during the night. This usually means only one thing, Djinn – the cat has been playing with (torturing is a human pastime) some creature he probably brought into the house in the dark hours.

When I say he’s been playing with some creature I really mean he has been enjoying his fascination with little things that move, mixed with a predators taste for blood. This is not torture. Torture is humans, usually men, deliberately inflicting pain on another creature, usually men, to produce a desired result. There’s a big difference.

Well, I followed the trail of tossed mats and noticed a disturbance around the bin in the kitchen. And then I stood on it. I felt something under my foot but when I moved my foot there was nothing there. Then I noticed there was something stuck to my foot. I scraped my foot on the carpet and there was a frog, dead. (RIMG1220 +1225.JPG)

It looks like the frog tried to get away in the corner beside the bin where there is a little cover. If he had just made it. He didn’t. I got some tissue and picked the frog up and its back half was missing. Djinn must have eaten it. I was annoyed at the cat for killing what it doesn’t need to eat. It’s a sign of a spoilt nature, but then all animals close to man are spoilt in nature, to some degree.

This is Djinn prowling in the back yard, so you can warn all the creatures when cat is around. (RIMG1236.JPG)

Cat isn’t like dog. It doesn’t pick up on right and wrong. It doesn’t have that willingness to please that might engender a change to its behaviour. Cat is cat, loves its pleasure as long as it’s available. And its pleasure is being cat. Dog, if it hasn’t been mistreated, wants to be mans friend.

I heard the lovely call of the pied magpie from out back, warbling you might call it, and brought the frog out with me to have a look. There was a pair of adult magpies teaching a young one how things are done. They were sitting in the tree close by, two cowled observers, while the young one was on the clothes line searching the ground for some food.

I do put some food out for the birds, especially when the weather is stormy as it has been for a few days. So I threw the frog out on the grass and before the young magpie could launch itself an adult butcher bird was on the ground with the frog in its mouth, that’s the difference experience makes. The butcher bird also has a young one in tow but manages its education a little differently to the magpies at this stage of its growth. (RIMG1232.JPG)

So I went and got some soft walnuts and broke them up for the young magpie. (RIMG1230.JPG) And the adults. They enjoyed that, the butcher bird too.

Frogs are sensitive creatures to be sure. Every day at dusk they welcome the night with calls to each other across the distance where I live, locating one another. From rainwater tank to rainwater tank they call. A deep, rhythmic croaking call.

Night time is when they come out of their daytime hiding and resting places, there are too many predators about during the day. I’m talking about the lovely green tree frogs that seem to survive very well without too many trees, but nature adapts to us, doesn’t it. As long as we make space for it. I make space for these frogs. And if it’s about to rain they know and start to croak it down. Welcome! Welcome! Nideep! Nideep!

This country has just been through the longest drought it’s known, as far as I know. But the thing about the creatures is they don’t have a problem with that, it’s not unusual in the history of this land. The creatures are in touch with the land, they are of the land and they know what they need to know of the land. It’s a deep inner knowing, not the knowing we know on the surface here of that’s Joe over there who just smashed his car, poor fellow.

It’s an inner sense of the sense of all things within their compass, or an innocence, innocent of the world of thinking. Animals don’t think. Just like babies. It’s what we love about them.

Frogs, who depend very much on a supply of fresh water, have a strategy for dealing with drought. They hibernate. They don’t just know when water is coming, they also know when water is not coming.

Not all species of frog do this but when drought is coming many dig themselves into the still wet mud at watering holes and wait. They dig themselves in deep enough so that when it does rain again it has to rain enough to wet right down to them so that it’s wet enough for them to complete their life cycle, to breed and die, while the tadpoles have a good chance of reaching maturity.

See how intelligent nature is? And science thinks it’s a numerical accident or a rational matter, bloody nonsense. What do you think enables the numbering or the rational? Could it be intelligent nature? Yours and mine?

And while they are hibernating, if they are hibernating for a long time, they shed their skin, in layers. Not because they are growing out of it but because they are drawing nourishment from it, and at the same time cocooning themselves from the pressures of their existence. They digest themselves from the outside in. Trusting without trust rain will come. And rain always comes.

They are able to do this because the frog is being the sensation of frog, the knowledge of frog. And so wasting absolutely no energy. Frog doesn’t think about where frog has been or what frog has done or not done. Or what is not frog. And frog does not think about the future, ‘God, I hope it rains soon or I’m going to dry out’. Frog doesn’t get anxious. Frog is frog.

Sweet little thing to me. RIMG1407.JPG (RIMG0891 + 1046 + 1216.JPG)

On my way back from Brunswick Heads today I went to the nature reserve from the Jones Road entrance. It’s a dead end road with only a few houses on it so it’s not sealed. Australia is such a huge place and with so few people it’s not affordable to seal all the roads.

Anyway, half way along this road I came to a fallen branch of a big gum tree. Some big gum trees have a habit of dropping their branches which is why it’s not wise to camp or park under them. The branch was a big one and I stopped the car to move it off the road. I’m still strong from my truck driving removal’s days, which is just as well since it was a heavy branch.

While I was tidying up the debris from the road I noticed a beautiful green beetle, iridescent I think is the word for it, it was beautiful. I picked it up and at first I thought it was dead but then it moved a back leg, so slowly.

I had the camera with me but there was nowhere in that spot to photograph the beetle. So I put it on a large leaf and took it in the car with me to the entrance to the reserve where I thought I might find a surface to put it on so I could take a picture.

When I got to the entrance the beetle was still in the same position as I first put it so I changed clothes for the walk and put on some insect repellent, I had just been for an interview. All the while keeping an eye on it in case it was alive enough to get lost in the car. But it didn’t move.

So, I was ready to take its picture and picked it up to go find a place for it, there was a tree stump close by that looked like it would do fine. Within a few seconds of me putting it in my hand it came suddenly alive and I realized at once it must be reacting to the insecticide. But before I could put it down it opened its beautiful iridescent green carapace, spread its wings and flew away with a loud buzzz. Off down the hill and into the distance. The insecticide really woke it up.

If you are having trouble getting the little ones to sit still for you try a different brand of insect repellent, you never know.

I went off down the track and after a while I went off the track and into the woods, having a look around and taking photos of the stuff that caught my eye. I was standing there looking at the shadow and light amongst the trees when out of the edge of my sight I caught the movement of something white and small moving fast along the ground.

Most creatures are camouflaged so it was an unusual occurrence. I bent down to where the white had last been and used a stick to lift a leaf or two and there it was. A spider carrying a white ball behind it. Amazing. It was a black spider and it was running along the ground carrying a white ball at least as big as its own body. (RIMG0962.JPG)

It tried hiding from me, disappearing under this leaf then that leaf and I used the stick to expose it until it gave up and stopped still. That’s when I got it.

What was the spider doing out in the open, albeit with much leaf litter for cover, carrying a big white ball for all to see. I suspect it was a nest of young she was carrying and it is probably fitting to this spider to carry them around with her since she probably doesn’t have a permanent home. The dedication and fearlessness of it, truly amazing.

I suspect she is a nomadic spider. Wandering on her piece of earth killing what she needs to eat and mating when the time comes. I wonder what happens when the young hatch? Does she kill something for them and leave them or does she nurture them for some time. Who knows what I’ll find tomorrow.

This was just off the Optus trail on the way towards ocean Shores. I went along the trail for a while and eventually came to a creek that was flowing, flowing from the swampland just back a ways. And it was lovely to see flowing water in the sunlight.

There is a certain clarity, a richness of sense and a refreshment to the mind in the sight and sound of running water. (RIMG0992+0995.JPG)

Ps. I found out it’s called a Wolf spider, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s their hunting nature; one or two kinds of wolf spider are known to hunt cane toads. And it carries its young on its back until they are mature enough to go their own way. A bit like people that.

These stalks of reedy grass are often home to some or other creature. These homes have the advantage of being well off the ground away from obvious dangers but the disadvantage of being relatively easily seen by the small birds and dragonfly’s that feed in these places. And a dragonfly is not to be taken lightly if you are a small flying insect.

First it was that turquoise and black fellow with the long nose, then the spider. Today I saw a small black and yellow striped wasp guarding its nest, less than an inch long. I could tell it was guarding its nest because when I tried to get close enough to take a photo it became restless, moving around in short jerky spurts of activity. But I persisted, gently, without getting too close so as to pose no immediate danger to the little lady or her nest. (RIMG0844 + 927.JPG)

I determined that by watching her closely, and reading her language, the way she moves or positions herself, any attitude or posture she might adopt, or noise she makes. It all communicates something, which doesn’t always lend itself to words. I never felt menaced by her, just warned.

The nest was attached low down on the underside of a seed cluster and it was a masterpiece of building. It was grey in colour, a little bigger than the seed cluster it was hanging from and with a similar, roughly diamond, shape. It looks like a cluster of chambers she probably built and laid her young in as she went. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has placed something at the centre of the nest cluster for its young to eat as they mature enough. That would make sense. That’s what nature does, it makes sense.

I have to admire the simple intelligence of this creature. Apparently alone, it found a spot to reproduce itself and built a protective structure to house its young while they come to life. Then standing guard, first with the warning of its – ‘I’m dangerous’ – yellow stripe, then if you get past this sense of danger and approach closer she moves around to show a fearlessness in spite of her tiny size. And the rest of nature knows she probably has a magnificent sting, so keep your distance or else!

I have noticed the seed clusters of the reed peel from the top down, one seed at a time, and the cluster she has attached her nest to hasn’t started peeling yet. I wonder if she has enough time for all her young to mature enough before the seed cluster peels down to where the nest is attached and it falls to the ground. I might get to see for myself, if I’m lucky.

There are many different grasses in the reserve. One is a firm slender stalk about five feet high with a seed cluster around an inch or two from its pointed tip looking a bit like a pine cone pointing up to the sky. One of these seed pods had a little spider nest built under it, the kind from which the spider darts out to catch its prey. (RIMG0840.JPG) Any prey would have to appear on an area about as wide as a matchstick and as long as a fingernail for the spider to have any chance of catching it.

I didn’t get to see the actual spider but its front legs were visible through the web, touching the strands of web that would transmit news of prey, poised. It’s a curious thing, what would the spider hope to catch in such a small hunting ground. You’d think there would be more fruitful hunting grounds.

You might say spiders don’t hope. It takes its place in the order of things according to its instinct, its innate intelligent connection to the nature around it. Inside. Nature looks after itself, creatures live and die. Everything lives by killing something, and some things die of starvation. But it is amazing to me the spider would be in that spot. That spider’s perfect spot. Maybe it was just nesting, looking after its eggs or tiny young. But I didn’t see anything but the spider when I went to have a closer look the next day. And amazingly it was still there under the seed cluster, sheltered from the rain and sun.

I don’t think there is an ounce of stupidity in the whole of nature. That facility is mans exclusive domain. And man wields it with wild abandon when it comes to nature. Like an angry child running in the garden slashing the heads off all the beautiful flowers. Eventually no more flowers will grow because none were left to seed.

How did we come to this?