Amazing what you find, especially when you’re not looking. Have been back in the garden, trying in vain to reclaim the garden beds from the weeds and grass which believe it’s their rightful place to thrive wherever they wish. From the village green to next door to my place, the recycling of newspapers has been brought into the arsenal to cover up any new menacing traces of new growth before being topped with a variety of types of mulch in the hope that will prolong the need for a repeat performance of such arduous work.
In the process however I’ve come across a couple of striking specimens, neither of which I’ve seen before. Never one to venture out into the garden without the protection of garden gloves, I was thankful I had them on when trekking towards me across the garden bed I was weeding came a Monstrous Bull Ant, no ordinary bull ant mind you, but one looking altogether like he was suited up with a coat of armour ready to go into battle. He had a shiny metallic dark blue body and red legs, wonderful to look at, I was so fascinated I watched him for ages. I had visions of the hierarchy of the ant colony portrayed by the characters in the animated movie Antz, and the selection process which would have culminated in the sending out of this brave scout, leaving the safety of the colony to check out the lie of the land for any danger, intimidating all in his path with his display of bravado. It worked. I wasn’t going to mess with him.
Not to be outdone, several of us were working in the village green garden when we discovered an orange spider happily sitting on a shrub. Very bizarre looking thing, and my attempts to Google orange spiders has not enlightened me any. He, or she for that matter, was about 6cm across including legs with a shape similar to a Huntsman spider, with a light orange body and legs, and intricate black markings under the belly. No one had a camera at the time so its identity will probably remain a mystery.
How many creatures are out there which we may only see once in a lifetime? And countless thousands more, never. There are obviously many we would prefer not to confront, either the tiny bitey, smally crawly, or the big bitey variety for that matter. The unexpected encounters I do appreciate are the moments like a few nights ago when I went to close the bedroom window, and there on the window sill was a tiny native frog. We chatted for a while, you know, all the normal things you’d ask someone who dropped in unexpectedly. I told him he was rather handsome looking, he blinked at me, I asked him what he’d been up to for the day, he was a bit shy though, stuck around but wasn’t very talkative. In the end I let him know he was a very welcome visitor and could return to any window sill anytime. Hope he understood.
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