Tuesday, July 09, 2013
How did we end up doing all this house maintenance during the hottest spell of the year?! Helping with the re-roofing of the shed by holding the material in place on Sunday (after it had been lying in the sun all day flattening out) I burnt my fingertips. They still tingle now!
This afternoon I returned to the gravel bay on the Jubilee River, where the number of minnows in the shallows was unbelievable.
Now here's a coincidence: When I saw the grass snake on this bank on Saturday I thought at first that its nose was a beetle creeping through the grass. Today there was a real beetle but alas, it was dead, bobbing about with the weedy detritus on the shoreline. I fished it out of the water and examined it; owing to its large size (35-40mm) and smallish head I think it's a female stag beetle.
I put it back in the water and watched it drift away.
According to all I've read, the stag beetle has declined alarmingly and become quite rare. It's even rarer now. (Later: after reading up on them, I find that the stag beetle spends most of its life (several years) as a larva. The adults live only a few weeks; so perhaps this female had laid eggs and then expired naturally.)
// posted by Christine @ 1:04 PM 
