Mother and Children …
A few questions have been answered, regarding what mother would do once the children are born, and what she does to eat – she has lost so much weight in the process apparent in her much reduced rear body.
About 50 tiny Huntsman spiders have hatched so far, with some dead already, and the sac is still looking full so I expect more in the coming days. But so far it has been interesting to observe the behaviour of the much maligned spider. In this case a mother, and she has gone hungry over a period of weeks to ensure the best for her babies, staying to protect them – most of the time – and eating whatever was unfortunate enough to wander her way. I am impressed by her maternal instinct, her devotion to the little ones – though instinctive it may be, is it ever any other way.
While I was watching I noticed she was chewing down on something that has come her way – you can see the stick/leg bits hanging out from under, an opportunity for some nourishment that would keep her going a little while longer – good for the babies prospects.
I tried to give a wider view of the situation, but restricted by the proximity of walls and things while doing my best not to disturb her the shots I got are the best I can do for now. Don’t want to frighten her off so she might not come back. It’s really a matter of intruding as little as possible so nature takes its course.
I also changed the lighting I was using, a modified snoot/diffuser that requires further refinement. Something to match the working distance relative to the magnification required for the shots, some of which are cropped slightly. It all works in the end, when you know the principles involved.
I may post another of this series if significant events occur that I am present for.
For those who wanted to know what happened next.
Mother rules Ok!
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
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Mother, Mother …
… In the dark of her den. Sitting there, listening to her little ones.
She has been sitting on her nest for over a week now. I had to move her from the garage while rearranging things but noticed in time there was a resident. So I put her in a suitable place, protected from the elements and unnecessary intrusion, and she has done fine.
Once I noticed she had actually moved the big white sack holding the young uns – which is attached to the wood only around the edges by silk ties, from one end of the wood to the other which was a closer/tighter fit allowing access only from the sides and no longer from atop. A security strategy I believe, to minimise directions of danger.
Another time I saw the nest was unattended and thought the move may have been too much and she abandoned it, as sometimes happens in nature, but she returned – probably from hunting or this one.
She must get hungry sitting on that egg sack for so long, outside my front door for over a week now and before that for I don’t know how long.
I had a mother once and then she died. Everybody dies, it’s ok.
She loved her children as only a mother can, in spite of our obvious failings – especially the boys, especially me – the epitome of rebellious.
The boys, young and old, because we are the more arrogant and troublesome. But girls too. And if you weren’t that your mother was lucky indeed.
But the point is Mother carries, births, nourishes and teaches what she can. She sees, experiences more of the children than the father, and so is more insightful and loving of them, regardless.
That’s what I see in Mother. Mother loves.
Our Mother, the Earth itself, loves us all and will take any punishment we throw at her. But one day she will let us know when we are not doing right by her, because we will hurt ourselves beyond repair otherwise – especially the boys, especially the older ones, who should know better by now.
Mother cares like no other.
Thank you, Mother.
The children will be out to play soon. :)
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This Little Girl …
… I found in the bucket of water I leave at the end of the garden to make it easier for watering a few starters – plants – there, the yellow bucket of the recent post of the same name.
She was exhausted from the effort to get out of the water and her temperature would have been below what is required for optimal operation of the system, but that’s a part of the effort she makes to survive, it also keeps her ‘warm’ in the cold water – while she dies from exhaustion.
I scooped her up, a finger beneath her and gently rose with her well balanced on it so as to put no strain on her meagre reserves, in trust she will recover with a little help. Insects die all the time from falling into water; it’s not unusual – a daily hazard where there is water and wind and predators – to evade, accidents happen too.
I brought her to a yellow Straw Flower in the sunshine where I could attend to her and feed her a little honey while she would clean, energise and dry out. Instead what happened was the honey blended or melted into the water drenching her little body and got in everywhere and made her sticky and unable to fly – I would suppose, putting myself in the bee’s shoes. Do bees have shoes? :)
She was disturbed, but not aggressively so. It was just that she now had more work to do because of my intrusion with the honey, however well intentioned. She may have taken a little of it but my placement of it was not regulated enough so there was just too much for best result, least effort to recovery.
So she went to work cleaning herself, and it seemed she would never succeed to get rid of the sticky water. So I interfered again, this time to spray her with more water from a bottle, to dilute the honey and make it easier for her to get rid of it. I did this three times and in the end, about an hour later, of me standing in the heat of the sunshine with her cupped in my hand for best solar heating as she gently gripped my skin in her jaws to enable the vigorous flapping of her wings and shaking of her bum to throw off any liquid, she seemed close to clean.
Then, when she was nearly ready to get back to her life as a free bee, free to do what she does, she climbed onto my finger, the highest part available to her – to launch from I suppose, since that’s what many creatures naturally do, but didn’t.
I was watching and waiting, I had observed and helped so far and was looking to see her take off but it wasn’t happening. She was just sitting on the top of my finger, only occasionally shifting herself this way or that, moving only slightly about. A few times it looked like she had just run out of energy, but I reckon the honey helped there at least.
I noticed a car coming into the driveway and looked up to see who it was, and it was just then she launched into the air and was gone.
Have to laugh! If it was personal I might have been disappointed she left unseen and without a wave. :)
But she left in her time and that’s always best, there’s no other way to go.
Nothing is done outside its time. It doesn’t matter what we may or may not want. Life is too big, and life is in charge.
A bow to thee, little bee.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab
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PS These pix were taken as my OB flash was dying on my #1 camera so exposure was hit and miss, these were the best of the lot.
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Read This at Your Peril …
Just kidding folks. :)
This is a Brown Ringtail Possum making a meal of some of the plants in my garden. She lives in the roof space and often we hear her arguing with the other possum on the roof at night, what a ruckus. Lovely little things though, you just have to give them their space and I can live with a few demolished plants – something else will grow there now. Life living! :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab. Sometimes you can click again for bigger if it’s big enough, the picture and the screen.
PS Details of benefits of Firefox 11.0 moved to : Read Me top of page.
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The Fly …
… no, no, not The Fly
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Once upon a time … Like now … :)
There was a Fly that carried a raindrop around on his back just to see how far he could carry it before exhaustion and eventual death took him – not really. He didn’t notice that to the observer he was a beautiful creature in a beautiful setting, when seen without reference to the stuff of mind, thought and emotion. This is what makes the race of men appear to be mad, the stuff of mind we believe in, until we don’t.
The Fly knows nothing of that though, thank god. Can you imagine the whole of nature emotionalised through self reflection? What a nightmare that would be. :)
No, the Fly is a Fly and the flower is a flower. The raindrop is something else though, let’s not get too serious now.
And light makes it all possible. The light of intelligence perhaps?
There are all sorts of things you can find out about nature just by observing what is at your feet. Most creatures have instincts that are a variation on a theme, that being survival. Flies are no different; they just have different characteristics and therefore behave accordingly.
People are much the same. The very same in terms of instinct, it being the basis for existence, but not so much alike when it comes to personality, intelligence and predisposition.
These ‘extra’s’ that seem to set us apart from the rest of nature are really a consequence of our reflection and emotionalisation of that instinctive nature, our nature, and the effect that has in the psyche is both personally and collectively phenomenal.
The psyche is a very real place where what happens here accumulates there when resolution is absent, and there’s a lot of that going around. The trouble is nobody notices the build-up until it’s too late. But that’s just the way it is here.
It is also true that what emotionalisation I do resolve here has the effect of clearing some of than inner space, the invisible psyche.
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How can you master your instinctive nature if you don’t reflect on it? And how can you not do what it takes to get it ‘wrong’, in order to get it right? The point being we don’t change except through pain and experience. When you’ve burnt yourself enough you learn what burns and you don’t let it happen any more.
It’s that simple, you can’t change it either. Though you can become cognizant of the process and enable the necessary change.
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It’s the same with any other kind of experience. Only when you’ve had enough of something, anything, can you really give it up, stop doing it. Because we realise there is a ‘better’ way to be.
That’s the fact in my experience. And this is what existence is for, to get it right so we don’t ‘have’ to get it right, or ‘wrong’, anymore.
Then we can truly enjoy the simple life and beauty of our instinctive nature mastered. The nobility of being, as opposed to the difficulty of living emotionally.
Make sense to anyone?
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Wake Up Call
It was early morning – my month is half and half, early and not so. About 6.00am, it had been an open sky during the night so it was coldish, relatively so. I went looking for any creatures that were visible, maybe late to rest in the afternoon and so ‘on top’ of things rather than hidden as so many are.
I went out the back yard and saw this tiny bee, or wasp, it’s so difficult to know at times, and thought it must be cool enough not to take much notice of me. But as soon as I got close she was away. Away about two feet to the flowers on the Crown of Thorns, the name given to a plant that grows out back.
It seemed frisky enough but I approached again where it was on the flower and it didn’t fly away this time but moved around the flower to get away from me, perhaps having exhausted it’s early supply of flight supporting energy. I took the opportunity to put a small drop of honey on a flower and as the bee wasn’t flying away I used my finger to nudge it in the direction of the honey.
When it got to the honey there was no distracting it. It was totally absorbed in the sweetness and surge of sensation it must have been to it. Heaven I’d say, to a bee on a cool morning in the shade. It drank a while and moved a little now and then and when it finally had enough it preened itself for a while, as they do, then flew away well prepared for an active day.
And not a word of complaint about the missing half of one antennae.
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Then a little while later a Golden Spiny Ant came along, about twice as long as the bee – you can see from the size relative to the drop of honey, it’s the same drop. And it was enraptured, wouldn’t you be? Honey, the rarest of foods for free at the most opportune time, breakfast, heaven indeed.
The ant made the most of it. And when it had enough it too went on its way. Not a thought from either to hoard or take more than was needed in the moment. Trusting nature will provide, instinctively, out in the wild yonder of the natural metropolis.
Wild little beauties both.
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Radiant Sunlight
Out the window, between the raindrops and when the clouds have passed, the light turns up. It’s especially noticeable when looking closely at something in shadow. That little turn of the radiance makes all the difference to seeing a thing properly, or not.
It’s the same no matter the subject, the closer I look the easier it is to see the shadow and the light. And it’s the balance that matters here, where everything is relative. The trick is to minimise the relativity, narrow the gap between the light and dark so it’s just right.
Then when you are ready, or the subject is ripe, an opening – or closing – occurs in the relationship and the quietest ‘BAM’, en-light-enment, of the subject. Entry into the state of seeing that is without the extremes of bright and dark. Or enough, in other words.
Enough of the extremes that mark the human condition, the excitement that keeps the world going and is reflected in nature – but not of it. Enough of the experience necessary to attain the right balance or poise of attention. Enough time and space to do what really needs doing here. Just enough, as the earth is in the balance of the solar system.
Our system of light, or love.
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The garden has been doing well indeed. Not so much doing it ‘my’ way as it ‘being’ done nature’s way, which is my way. I just introduce – seed and plants and things – while the garden gets on with living its life, the coming and going of form and relationship as shape, colour and happening.
In short I stay out of it as much as possible while taking responsibility for its primary function, to live, again and again, by tending it. And it never ceases to delight, what create-ures may arise from the process. I always look at the result most apparent to my sense and disposition.
The magnificent creatures at my feet, or hand. And some get out of hand.
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I have mentioned the big yellow Lynx spider in recent posts – just scroll down, she is still queen of the tops and even when knocked from her spot, as I did inadvertently, she makes her way back within minutes.
More recently there have been a few different visitors who sat long enough for me, too many to show them all in fact. But a few most delightful and unusual I will include, for the simple pleasure of seeing what my nature is capable of. It’s your nature too.
There was the most delightful shovel headed beetle with a metallic green shield on its shoulders frolicking in the heart of a yellow straw flower, as symbolic of the sun and its natural children as you’ll ever see. It had been injured somehow and appeared to have lost its front ‘hands’ that it does much work with but I saw no heed of it, but some impeding of its function. It was nevertheless a powerhouse of energy as I picked it up and it sought to dig down into the gap between my fingers with a strength amazing for its size – about a centimetre long, for the relief from all that yellow light perhaps.
Then there was the tiny fly that never stops still, as well with a shiny green shield of a back, also no more than a centimetre long. It sat just long enough for a few shots then off it went, on its busy business of a colourful fly in the garden, too quick and small to see, for me.
A small native paper wasp on a dark green leaf in the cold of the pre dawn light, looking a little tired or sleepy perhaps. Not where they are usually found at all, being of a social kind. There is a nest just above where I found her, about 30 individuals that feed and tend it, and it was apparent to me she had fallen from there. But then I noticed she only had one wing, the near one, the other just a stump undeveloped, and thought she may have been rejected, forcibly. I have seen these wasps express a distinct order of hierarchy and it is not unknown for creatures to shun a damaged or injured member of the group. She seemed healthy enough otherwise but a wasp that can’t fly can’t feed itself. I interfered and allowed her on my warm finger to climb back to the nest where she immediately went about tending the cells of the emergent young. I saw no reaction to her presence and then she was lost to my sight in the melee of activity that the hive already was, and trust all was well with her. She was obviously happy to do what she was born to do.
Then there was another kind of wasp, a mud dauber I think, of a solitary kind, and maybe even a new born from her size and the dried mud on her back. I found her early in the morning still asleep on a passion fruit leaf, something else the garden is growing that provides for many a visitor. The sun, good old Sol, was just rising to the right and behind and I had a time to shoot before it was high and warm enough for the wasp to fly. I sought out the best positions for the nicest backgrounds, a very important part of any picture, and think I found the best of the situation, acceptable anyway. It’s a matter of alertness and perception, the workings of experience within, to get a ‘good’ picture. Or, in other words, I do my best.
A subjective thing indeed, every picture being a good one to someone, some time. Judgment is a burdensome practise.
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Water, Water Everywhere …
Just waiting for the next deluge to see if the sealing around the edge of the house has worked, where it meets the earth, to keep the rain out of the downstairs area – referred to in recent posts.
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The wildlife are taking what chances they get to be on with things, eating, mating, sleeping and whatever else it is they get up to – which is more than most have ever imagined, I imagine.
The big yellow Lynx is still going strong in her plant tops home, Leaf-Cutter Bees are making good use of some of the plants new leaves and flowers – of which there are many from the regular raining and watering. There have been many other creatures about to take pictures of but I thought I’d keep this simple.
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Though I have been going less into the wild nature recently I do when I can, and there is always something new to see, that I look. There are tracks through the places I go, even if made only by me, and I usually stick to them so as not to disturb what doesn’t need disturbing, unless I see something that attracts me to it.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of being awake to what’s in front of me, as it was for this beautiful creature lying along a stem of tall grass that was hanging across the track at dusk.
So I made an effort to capture her true nature under a darkening blue sky.
A golden backed Earwig – and it didn’t jump. :)
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The Perfect Picture …
… of sense, what else … is the one the mind doesn’t move on, obviously – no thought, no fault.
Thinking is the only imperfection on sense.
Here’s one to practise on.
No thinking now. :)
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Nature's Place 
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