Golden Head
The big bods are arriving to the garden now, about 5” long this one, and there is plenty to eat this year so no need to evict them to the neighbours, yet. :-)
A Locust I believe, perched on the veranda, cautious but unafraid. She backed up from the lens so I manoeuvred her and eventually got some nice background in the frame – employing behaviour that appears undesirable to the inexperienced.
But no need to push it. At the angle she was and with what I had with me at the time there were only a few shots available. The upper body/thorax and head portrait is most expressive, for a Locust, and I thought the foot especially interesting.
Armoured, both for gripping and striking. Those sprung legs are strong enough to propel the heavy beast into the air, and those spurs are capable of penetrating and damaging the strongest of attackers.
It’s wild out there …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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Spring Time
Plants in the garden are reaching for the sky, and in every other direction. Small creatures are reaching for the plants, from every direction. And spring has only just begun.
Ride that falling leaf and see the earth … from one perspective anyway.
It’s time for the new.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click a picture for a closer look
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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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Honey Bee Central
Individuals from three visits over the past month or so, where the creek crosses the track in Venman. They come in waves from the hive, fill up at the waters edge and home again.
Hunkered down on the side of the track, off the landing zone and out of the flight path, watching for any nearby bee at the right angle and situation for a shot or two.
Careful not to kneel or lean on one, don’t want to kill or get stung, dipping the lens tip to the water at times for a bees eye view. Hat on in case of accidents from behind, listening for the tell-tale buzz from what can’t be seen.
Air traffic observation. A flurry of landings, a scattering of take offs, coming and going in apparent confusion with rare collision until, all of a sudden, nothing. Quiet space.
A gap in the busy work of the bee, it seems, and the mind at work with them dies, no more to take my attention.
Time to look to the sense, in between.
Mind the gap …
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Urban Jungle Monk
The solitary visible resident of the remnant forest car park lay head down on a post. An awkward angle but a still subject, unmoving, as if deeply focussed.
Unblinking metallic eyes, all-seeing atop a long stubbled neck, arms folded in prayer, not unusual for a Mantis.
Focussed … is one word could describe this momentarily statuesque creature, free of the need to think.
Simple natural intelligence, ubiquitous and so rarely realised.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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