Wonderful Nature - Thread

[Heart Of Midnight]

There are nice observations about nature here again, thank you for writing them! 

I've been watching a bat flying around our house and garden for several nights now. I don't know if there are more of them, but they fly here every summer. Judging by their small size and shape, it or they are Northern bats (Eptesicus nilssonii). It is Finland's most common bat species.

I water the flowers at night, because of the heat of the day. Today, in the dark of the night, I almost stepped on a frog, but luckily I noticed it in time!    I have some containers in the garden that are filled with water, maybe it goes in them to freshen up. I've mainly intended them for hedgehogs, but it's good if they help other animals too!

Thursday was a hot day, 28 degrees Celsius. Friday should also be close to 30 degrees. Then in the following days it will start to be a little cooler and there will be rain.

[Artemesia's Garden]

I am pretty sure I have seen an unusual finch called a Lesser Redpoll hanging around our garden. I've seen the male twice now, there may be a female but they are less easy to spot. I'm feeling positive that they are primarily seed eaters and the fields and verges around here seem to be well managed for winter seed. Hence also the Goldfinches I posted about before.

I saw comma butterflies over the last two days. They are large and very striking in person. Also the more Peacock and Red Admiral butterflies started coming out a few weeks ago. We live near a railway line and there are a lot of nettles and buddleja bushes locally which feed this family of butterflies (Nymphalidae).

[Heart Of Midnight]

I was just watering the flowers in the garden. The air is very humid. Heat 20 degrees Celsius. Still no thunder, but a few drops of water came while I was outside.
I stayed for a while admiring the dark clouds until I was startled when a bat flew right in front of my face!  I had an outdoor light on and it had attracted insects flying near me, so the bat didn't want me for its meal after all... unless it was a vampire!  

[Taffeta]

We have had next to no butterflies this year Our garden is full of buddleia and such, but they've just not been here. Last year we had commas, red admirals, painted ladies, torties and peacocks but...this year it's just been a handful of whites and small torties and the odd meadow brown.

The season started so well, too, as I saw a brimstone and two orange tips.

I blame the building. They've been ripping up the old factory site, and we're all sure that's the cause. Destroying habitat. I miss the butterflies

We have a frog in our pond, but he seems to be on his own. We used to get spawn and babies, but not for a long time.

[BlackCurtains]

^ There is a mass extinction of insects taking place right now. It's mostly climate change related, but deforestation and use of pesticides are helping it along. 40% of insects are declining globally and a third are endangered. You can plant native flowers and offer a shallow dish of sugar water. It's really sad, and dangerous, since insects are responsible for almost all pollination and are a huge support block for ecosystems. Everything else will crash without insects.

[Taffeta]

We fortunately have slews of bees, some of which live in a ground nest down by our shed. They're not at all hostile. We have a lot of lavender as well as buddleia and other things, so there's plenty of pollinators here, but just a real drop on butterflies :'(

Where I live is an urban village but there is a lot of forestland nearby. The field being built on was an abandoned factory site that had grown wild, though. I hope there are butterflies in the forests.

We were visited by the geese again today, who set up camp under the tree at the end of the street. It rained a lot overnight so there were some road puddles, and they were having a great time.

...Drivers, less so. But in our neighbourhood, the geese are usually allowed to have their own way.

[Heart Of Midnight]

Now that the Ligularia stenocephala (I don't know if there is an English name for this?) have started to flower in the garden, there are many bumblebees, but much, much less bees than there were last summer. There are also fewer butterflies here than last summer. I have set up a feeding place for them, if even one beauty arrives there. On Monday there was only a wasp and ants. 

Speaking of wasps... Those creatures have made a nest in the closet on the terrace of the outbuilding! I was there during the day putting flowers, and one of them almost flew right into my face! I told it, now watch where you fly! After that, I said a few nice Finnish swear words.
Fortunately, no one has gone to that closet during the whole summer! I visited it early in the spring to get supplies for the plants and there was no nest there yet.
When it's fall and the first frosts come, I'll probably have to destroy that nest, even if I don't want to kill the queen that might be sleeping there. I don't like wasps, but I don't hate them either. What should be done? 

[BlackCurtains]

You can knock the nest down? They'll probably move. But of course you want to be very careful and leave them alone for a while afterward because they'll be mad.

I don't like wasps at all. I'm allergic to their stings Well, I am allergic to most insect stings and bites. I never was before I got bitten and stung by fire ants. Then I became allergic to all insects. Fire ants I won't hesitate to kill. They aren't native and they destroy other ant colonies. There is a native fire ant, but it's sting is mild compared to the RIFA (red imported fire ant).

In other nature news, this morning there were a few seagulls here. They sometimes stop by on their way to the beaches.

[Heart Of Midnight]

You can knock the nest down? They'll probably move. But of course you want to be very careful and leave them alone for a while afterward because they'll be mad.

  Well, that's the way I'd intend to do it, but I meant that I don't know if I'll be able to do it when the time comes. I wouldn't want to kill a hibernating queen wasp. Now I don't even go near the nest so they can be in peace and raise their larvae.
No matter how sad it is, I'll probably have to dispose of that nest because I'll need things from that closet again next summer. It's difficult to decide...  Fortunately, there is still a little time until winter and much more until next summer!

[Taffeta]

We have two little bee nests down by our shed but no wasp ones thankfully. We get enough of them in the vine when the grapes are ripe (that grows right under my window).

I walked up into the town park yesterday to see the little greylag goslings Mum and I saw some weeks back, climbing through the fences. They're almost grown up now - just a little bit fluffy still. There were a lot of canada geese as well, and the five ducklings Mum and I also saw are also nearly full grown mallard ducks now - not quite with all their markings but not far off getting them.

I was happy to see them all doing so well.

A Mrs Blackbird was collecting nesting material from the tree area near Asda. They often have a 2nd brood, so I guess she's getting ready for that.

Still not many butterflies, but we did see a couple of common blues yesterday.

[Artemesia's Garden]

OK the hedgehogs definitely like to trash their water and feeding bowls and poop everywhere! I can't believe what a mess they make! Like rockstars in an a hotel room! I do find it odd that they poop so near the food, a lot of animals wouldn't do this. Our cat won't share the bicsuit bowl with the hedgehogs becasue they are so messy. It's probably for the best in case they are carrying any bugs or diseases. I think I need to move thier feeding station away from the house. Anyway, we are lucky to have them and we live on a quiet road, so that's good. We just need to figure out the ettiquette.

[Heart Of Midnight]

On the night between Friday and Saturday, I was with my mother in our yard, looking to see if the Perseids ( one of the brighter meteor showers of the year) could be seen. We had gone out a little too late, so the maximum had already passed, but we did see a few.
Just before 02:00, we noticed something really bright coming in the sky from the south. It was a huge ball of light around which we could see steam. Just as if it had flown through clouds of fog, but there was no fog but a completely clear moonlit night!
It flew in the sky completely noiselessly just above our heads towards the north. I said to my mother that what the h*** was that! Maybe now we finally saw a UFO! Of course, I didn't have my camera with me outside at that moment. 
Later we found out that it had been the American SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket! I've never seen anything like it! It was an amazing experience!

On the night between Saturday and Sunday, we were outside again looking at the sky. We saw a few shooting stars, but our admiration for them was short-lived because a bat almost came on me! Apparently it was chasing some insect that was flying near me in the dark. I was startled because earlier in the summer I had read the news about a woman who was bitten by a bat. That's why I didn't stay longer in the yard.

[Beth3346]

i've been seeing bats in the late evening. i love bats because they eat mosquitos. but i can't have the dogs out when there are bats. also i'm going to need to make sure they're not in the attic. there is an oak tree in the neighbor's yard to maybe they're in there. i need to get some binoculars so i can see more animals and birds.

Yesterday when i was out with the dogs a butterfly flew over to the fence and stayed a while. it's nice to look at nature when i'm stressed out. it reminds me that most of the stuff i'm stressed about is unimportant and the world goes on.

[BlackCurtains]

I saw an orange anole

They do tend to come in a variety of earthy colors but I've never seen one a bright orange. I think they can change their pigment a little so maybe it was sitting on some of the orangish mulch. It wasn't all orange, just a stripe down it's back, the rest was brown. But it really stood out. It was in the grass/weeds/plant debris that's next to my stairs and I noticed it when I came home yesterday.

There's been an egret hanging out in the yard behind the mailboxes. It flies past my window every morning and lands by the tree. There must be a stream behind the bushes or something.

[Taffeta]

I've become a bee whisperer.

We have a lot of bees in our garden, because Dad has a whole ton of lavender and they love it. We also have a couple of nests around by the shed, of a type of bumble that are not particularly aggressive, and we don't interfere with them.

So yesterday I was about to head out to water the basket and the front tub, when I did a double take. Sitting ON THE KEY in the front door was a fuzzy little bee. I swear it was trying to work out how to turn the key in the lock, because it was butting its head against the key. I got some tissue and a pot expecting to have a fight with it to get it out, but it came quite placidly onto the tissue, and then sat quietly while I took it outside and put it on one of the plants.

This morning, I was woken up by a different bee in my room. I very rarely have bees in my room - wasps are more common - but this one was making a racket at the window asking to be let out. So I opened the window and out it went.

Two bees in 24 hours. No bees were harmed in the making of these escape routes. O.o.

I love bees, they're very cute and smart. But we did have one earlier in the year who was hilarious. It was a large bumble and was very drunk on nectar. We were trying to do some planting and this bee kept crashing into what we were doing. I'd move it up the garden and it'd come back, walking up the grass like it owned the place. This went on multiple times until I picked it up in a plant pot and moved it to the herb garden. I expected it to climb or fly out and go on with its life, but no - it was still sitting inside the plant pot when we'd finished o.O. Too drunk to fly, apparently. We let it out to roam around the herb garden.

While I'm on the subject of weird bugs, did anyone know woodlice can apparently not only swim but also breathe underwater?

I watered our climbing plant tower - I always check the tray for insects before I fill it, just in case. This time, after I filled it, this massive slug suddenly came out from underneath, poked its head above the water. So I plucked it out and took it to the front to put somewhere more appropriate. When I went back, I found three or four woodlice swimming UNDER the water. They must have been under there a good ten or fifteen minutes. One had climbed out on its own, leaving a water trail behind it. The others didn't do anything until I put in a leaf, and then they climbed onto it to get out.

If I was under water for 15 mins, I'd be in trouble. The water was an inch deep, which is pretty deep for a woodlouse to be stuck in. But they were all fine. O.o.