You're a great add to this thread, Jeronimooo. Just checked your website. Nice stuff. Seems like great fun for a past time.
It is getting very near my favorite time in Maine as it is getting to that season that I call "Grey days", shortly after fall and just before winter where everything, from the skies to nature turns grey. I think it is just so breathtaking! It's like the whole world has stopped and is holding its breath. Always makes me think very strongly of Gaia. Right up there with the first snowfall when silence rules the world.
Know what you mean by your characterization of the season, too! I live quite close to the sea and the beach+ocean are at their most now: dark cloudy skies, strong winds and, yes, a little bit of a drizzly rain coming down. = close to perfection
Yeah, J, I live near the ocean, also, though I haven't gotten down there hardly at all this year. For someone who spends there time doing whatever I please, it sure seems amazing that I get so bogged down in stuff!
In the “add a word” thread i linked the word “Scotland” to “frustration”. In order not to offend Jozzy and other Scottish people, I feel the need to explain that. You soon will find out why I use the Nature Notes thread to do so…
In June 2008 I went to Scotland by bicycle, in order to record wild plant species (hobby). There was one plant I was very desperate to see. According to my flora of the British Isles (with marvellous pictures made by Marjory Blamey) this species was a "Scottish endemic and the emblem of the Scottish Wildlife Trust". Marjory warned me: "don’t hope to see it in the late June or early July". But stubborn as I am, I was determined to find it: Scots Primrose – Primula scotica. According to local publications I could be found on grassy coastal areas within the salt spray area around Durness. The woman in the local bookstore advised me to visit the Golf court. A big sign near the entrance pointed out the ecological values of the court, such as Scots primrose. I looked and looked and looked and… Could Marjory be right after all? Finally I managed to find some specimens and once I was in the flow, they were indeed to be found everywhere. But still I was frustrated: the were tiny!!! Let the picture of the plants I found speak for itself…
So me linking "Scotland" to "frustration" has nothing to do with Scotland in general. ;-)
I did know that the colonies are made up of the queen and all her daughters, who are identical to each other. They cooperate to raise more sisters and make lovely honey.
I didn't realise that all stops when the queen decides it's time to mate, and starts laying male eggs. The queen's daughters aren't happy about this, as they want their mother to keep making sisters, or at least to mate with their sons, instead of their (half) brothers. (this is all down to the complicated genetics of bumblebees).
So the workers start trying to eat the queen's male eggs and begin to lay their own eggs instead.
When the queen finds out, there's a big fight.
Apparently, the outcome in most nests is that the males that survive are nearly all the queen's.
Good news! As of noon today, the shambolic Government badger killing scheme has been abandoned, at least for now.
After being forced to concede that they had made a total balls-up of their population estimates, then failing to come anywhere near their target killing total, they lowered their targets and extended the killing period.
But they still failed to hit every one of their targets, leading to various authorities to describe the scheme as "a fiasco", "inhumane", "unscientific" and "shameful".
Even the Government Ministers responsible are admitting it hasn't gone well.
That hasn't stopped the National Farmers' Union announcing that they are still "committed to supporting wider roll-out".