Took this snap this afternoon in newcastle upon Tyne on a rotten tree strange looking fungus .

 

Nice.. Raspberry slime mold

BTW, apparently, Spock can mindmeld with these:

 

Thanks couldn't identify the species.

 

Pleasure, they look almost alien, or like a cluster of cuttlefish eggs, or the like.

 

Steve.

 

Caught this one sunbathing yesterday…although it is getting to the time of year where they do die off, sometimes on-mass which is an impressive if sad sight. This fellow was a large one by local standards.
.

 

Buddies backyard

 

Wow, how do your two cats respond to him??

Anything like this:

 

Ha ha actually his little bulldog chased of a bear once. I kinda think bears don’t want to waste the energy. My cat hairy used to fight bobcats in the area and only once did she catch a pretty deep scratch on her chest I was running out to rescue her but she chased the bobcat off. I don’t know what was going through the bobcats mind but when I took hairy to the vet she was amazed looking at the offensive wound vs no defensive wounds but I don’t kid myself that bobcat could have done a # on her if he was in the fighting mood. Edit: our bear, bobcat and now apparently other wild cats population really exploded during the lockdown. I never saw a moose in my area pre pandemic

 

A couple more from Grand Canyon

 

A tree frog from our yard recently turned into a window frog for a while...



We saw a few Monarch caterpillars this year on our milkweed and butterfly plants...





And we were lucky enough to spot a Monarch chrysalis that was attached to the leaf of a black eyed Susan flower...



Unfortunately it ended up not working out for this one - the shell was damaged somehow...



The squirrels are busy...this one decided he wanted to come inside...







They are very busy collecting nuts. They love the shag bark hickory nuts, but aren't as fond of the bitternut hickory nuts. This bitternut dropped and hit me on the shoulder while I was out splitting some wood on Saturday...



All these pieces were too big for my small hydraulic splitter, so I went the old fashioned way - sledge and wedge...





Yes, wearing a watch - it was fine through a couple hours of wailing away with that 10 lb sledge...



Didn't finish it all, but made a good dent in the pile. I'd played tennis the night before and was playing again on Sunday, so I have to pace myself. Gone are the days of doing whatever I wanted one day and then being fine the next day...



Getting ready for winter...

 

From what I know of Bobcats they are really big compared with domestic cats, about twice the size of a Maine Coon..
It's amazing how brave domestic cats can actually be, there's some footage I saw from the US of a domestic cat attacking, and scaring off a huge alligator..

I think they're about the same size as the European Lynx, sadly we don't have them in the UK anymore, they were all killed off around the same time as the wolves, the bears and the beavers, although we're in the process of reintroducing the beavers which is great news..

I hear that moose can be pretty intimidating, I've never actually seen one in the flesh, and they were completely wiped out here many thousands of years ago.

I wonder what it was about lockdown that led to the wildcat populations exploding?? Have they actually increased in numbers or did they just increase in confidence, impinging on areas they previously hadn't?

 

From what I read with most humans locked away animals felt safer traveling. And they can cover some ground. Moose are amazing beasts. They will total a car in an accident. I see more when I travel further north and it’s almost comical how big they get.

 

A new friend who’s been hanging out on top of a bush for the past several days:

 

Rocher de Roquebrune, Provence



SONY RX 1 with ZEISS - cropped

 

Is anyone here to determine this beetle? (Provence)
lenght incl. the middle antenna : 1,5 cm

 

Looks like a Boll Weevil...

 

Thank you, Archer, the tree (oak) is not far away. Probably more an acorn weevil...? I found other pictures searching "weevil"
He is still sitting on our glass-table.