Venus Drive Trail

 We used to see many serious photographers armed with sophisticated cameras with powerful macro lenses, setting them up on sturdy tripods to photograph spiders and other interesting insects along this trail. Our lesser cameras did not make us less fervent in our quests to find insect species that were uncommon or were engaged in life-and-death battles with each other or that were in the process of being devoured by another of its kind. That was more than two years ago. As time went by, the insect population declined, not just in that area but in all of the usual parks and nature reserves we had frequented. 

Yesterday, there were none of those photographers I was describing earlier and the insect presence was really dismal in terms of frequency and variety. I guess there is a correlation between the two. As for us, we walked into the trail bearing flickers of hope that the insects were back but after two hours of walking and trying very hard to spot them, we walked away feeling really sorry for the insect kingdom. 

Perhaps we have disturbed their peace in our bid to make the trail more friendly to humans and consequently they have retreated into spaces where we could not access. Perhaps they are gone forever because the environment has been made unsupportive of their existence. Perhaps, perhaps...

A walk into nature's arms is always a pleasure. She protects us from the strong and damaging sunlight and reveals to us the beauty that is ours if we take the effort to look. So we saw some isolated bees and wasps, plenty of fungi and some beetles that fed on them and the lovely dragonflies ruling the space above the stream albeit in fewer numbers than before. We got to savour what's left of what there was a few years ago when we did not think that this day will come. Looking back at our photos, we really felt that Nature had given us a great privilege in letting us observe in detail the wonderful forms and behaviour of a great variety of insects before they slowly disappear from view.

A wasp enjoying its breakfast.

A skink with such a beautiful design on its back.

Dragonfly that is common in this trail.

This leaf always reminds me of the batmobile.

The base of an uprooted tree.

A dragonfly that is dark blue in colour.

Roots.

A tree with shallow roots. The easiest solution was to chop it down. 

An assassin bug that we had not seen before.

A cockroach.

Fungus beetle.

This fungus must be delicious.

Enjoy the beauty of this fungi.

Powderpuff flower.

Eggs or bird droppings

Looks like cherries and very tempting but don't.

More fungi.

Houses near the Venus Drive Trail, so much like toy houses..