Category Archives: Neanderslavia

An Extreme Form of Gardening

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If you want to make a huge difference to countless millions of lives, you absolutely can.

All you have to do is create a wildlife pond. It doesn’t have to be big. A micro pond in a bucket can mean the world to tiny lives looking for a place to do their thing.

A wildlife pond doesn’t have to take much money. It does take a whole lot of time but that’s mostly because you’ll be spending hours upon hours marveling at your creation.

The amount of joy you’ll get in return is tremendous. If you’re not careful, you’ll also get backache – but if you do, you’ll know it was totally worth it.

Ponds are like fingerprints – each one is unique. Mine is a young retention pond on a sunny terrace. And it is prone to drama, as it befits a fledgling body of water. At the filming of this video, I was dealing with a charming but unruly guest who’s overstayed its welcome, for more than one reason. I can still hear the delicious crunch it makes when you rip it from the pond bottom. Good times!  

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Ribniki so kot prstni odtisi – vsak je drugačen!

Skupno jim je to, da v njih najdejo zatočišče premnoga drobna življenjca, ki se najraje kar sama povabijo. Pa tudi kakšno malce večje se najde med njimi.

In potem tam živijo, se lovijo in množijo, za obilo presenečenj poskrbijo in skrbnega opazovalca marsičesa naučijo. Lastniki v ribnikih najdemo srečo, pa tudi precej dela. V ribniku in okolici se zmeraj kaj dogaja 😅

From Pest to Protector: Keeping Wasps away from your Picnic

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No screaming, fainting or peeing yourself is necessary. Wasps don’t want to fight you.

What they do want is sugar for themselves and protein for their young. They will defend themselves alright if they think they have to. But they’d much rather not tackle us. We’re just too big and strong and panicky for them.

The fact that wasps love our food while also having a healthy fear of humans means you can bribe them into protecting your feast instead of raiding it.

The thing is, wasps can do some things we humans can’t. One of them is putting the fear of God into flies, horseflies and mosquitoes. Those blood-suckers are normally drawn to humans like tiny needles to a giant magnet, but when wasps are around, they prefer to keep their distance.

Turning wasps into your personal security detail is simple: see which food items your wasps are most interested in, put a few chunks on a special plate and move it a little away from your meal (but not too far). The wasps will gratefully descend on the offering and leave you alone, all while scaring away most of the biting insects that normally can’t resist the siren call of your skin.

Just be a good host and wasps will be great guests.

Piknik z osami: od groze in strahu do sožitja in miru

Seveda sem se jih naprej bala. A ko se je strah pred osami umaknil firbčnosti, sem se umirila in jih malce bolje spoznala. S kančkom razumevanja pa je vse lažje.

Ose na splošno nimajo prav nobene želje, da bi se ravsale s človekom, saj se to zanje čisto preslabo konča. Imajo pa zelo rade našo hrano, saj potrebujejo sladkorje zase in beljakovine za svoje mladičke.

Če ti ose vpadejo na piknik, se zato splača malce pogledati, katera jedača in pijača jim najbolj tekne, nato pa je nekaj naložiš na krožniček, ki ga položiš malce stran od svoje pojedine. A ne predaleč stran!

Osja prisotnost namreč sploh ne prija komarjem, muham in obadom, tako da dokler blizu tebe osice brenčijo, se mali krvosesi raje stran držijo.

Skratka, če boš ti dober gostitelj, bodo ose dobri gostje.

A taste for flesh but with a twist

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Hornets are famous for their love of picnics which they happily pillage for food, drinks and your screams of horror. If you’ve ever picked up a piece of steak in your trembling hands and inspected it for damage after a hornet raiding party, you probably noticed that they had taken sizeable chunks out of it.

Hornets have powerful jaws and a taste for flesh. But there’s a catch. The adults don’t actually eat meat themselves. Instead, they chew it up and feed it to their young. The babies in turn ooze out a sweet liquid that the adults then happily consume.

Case in point, our accidental pet hornet ZhuZhana, the worker-turned-queen who spent the last dozen or so of her hornet years with us, would graciously accept our offerings of sugar water. (She notably dropped some of her enthusiasm for assorted fruits once she had gotten a whiff of pure white sugar.)

But she never ever deigned to accept any kind of meat. Hornets may possess only a few ganglia but our ZhuZhana clearly knew she could no longer return to her nest to feed the baby hornets. Her cozy new home, complete with an endless supply of sugary treats and our adoring stares, was all she had left and she decided to make the most of it.

Dearly missed by us, she is survived by her family in our old hollow apple tree.

Sršeni slovijo kot navdušeni roparji piknikov, kjer se lotijo vsega od sadja, pijače in mesa, pa tudi človeških branilcev pikniških dobrot, če po sršenje presodijo, da se preveč razburjajo. Če človek ni preveč zaposlen z vreščanjem in klatenjem po sršenjih gostih, pa utegne opaziti, da so že ob prvi najavi njihovega prihoda iznenada poniknile vse druge žuželke, ki so do tedaj obletavale pijačo in jedačo.

Sršen je pač mogočen žužon, ki vliva strahospoštovanje širni okolici, še zlasti manjšim žuželkam, ki jih mimogrede hrustne na pol. Prav zato je v osnovi precej mirna žuža, ki se ne pusti hitro razburiti, kadar je na obisku pri tebi.

Malce drugačna zgodba pa je, če si ti na obisku pri njih. Če te zagledajo blizu sršenjaka, jim to kar precej pospeši srčni utrip. Pa še takrat hitro pokapirajo, kdo od ljudi je domač in ne skriva v sebi kakšnih dezinsektorskih namenov.

Če hočeš zanesljivega odganjalca komarjev, moljev in muh skozi vse poletje, si težko omisliš boljšega od sršenjaka pod napuščem. Domači sršeni ti ne bodo storili ničesar, razen če ti prvi začneš, premnoge krilate in tudi kakšne nogate vsiljivce pa bodo odločno napotili drugam.

The friend who fell from the skies

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One fateful Saturday, a pair of sky warriors crashed to the ground, locked in battle.

They say every fight you can walk away from is a good fight. I guess that means our new friend had a good one indeed.

Her opponent, however, flew off. Because this is what victorious hornets do, after successfully shredding their rival’s wings.

So there she was – bruised and battered and suddenly pedestrian.

Under any ordinary circumstances, this would have meant she would be torn apart, limb by limb, by an army of gleeful ants. Unless she were lucky and a hungry bird got to her first.

But these were no ordinary circumstances. Because the turf on which she landed was ours.

She may have lost the duel but she won our love, along with a life-time supply of sugar water.

Zhuzhana, as we named her, was born a worker. But she ended up living like a queen.

#hornet #europeanhornet #Vespacrabro #pethornet #rescuedhornet #injuredhornet #rescue #feedinghornet #handfeeding #insectfeeding #insectrescue #insectlife #petinsect #zhuzhana #srsen #wetlands #vojnik #slovenia #neanderslavia

Like oversized mosquitoes but friendlier and clumsier

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Here’s a pair of creatures who get blamed for all the wrong reasons. This loved-up couple are crane flies, most likely of the Tipula oleracea persuasion.

They’re too big for any regular mosquitoes, check fingers for scale, which only makes it worse because they get accused of being giant mosquitos and swatted out of existence.

But these clumsy insects don’t bite at all. Their larvae on the other hand, do bite alright – they have a taste for plant roots and can chew their way through vast swathes of grass and crops, leaving huge dried patches in their wake.

As is often the case, good biodiversity goes a long way. If baby crane flies are giving you a headache, know that birds and ground beetles can help you keep their numbers modest and their activities focused on munching decaying plant matter, which is a good thing because it keeps nutrients cycling.

Just keep your pots and pans covered when the adults pay you a dinner visit – they have an uncanny talent for falling into open dishes.

#cranefly #cranefliesmating #tipula #insectlife #koseninar #wetlands #vojnik #slovenia #neanderslavia

The Snail

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  • Garden snails are native to the Mediterranean
  • But they’ve travelled as far as California and Australia
  • (People being followed by snails is a real thing.)
  • Growing snails on purpose is called heliciculture
  • Growing them by accident is called good biodiversity
  • If snails threaten your garden, make it firefly-friendly
  • Because fireflies eat snails and slugs
  • So do frogs, lizards and birds
  • Or you can eat the snails yourself
  • They’re a good source of protein – and parasitic worms
  • I prefer biodiversity to gastronomy, but you do you

Catch of the day: an elderly snail

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When two garden snails really like each other, they show it by mutual stabbing. They’re equipped with special love darts for this very purpose – they’re hermaphrodites and their love dueling, which goes on for hours, is how they exchange seed.
Throughout history, garden snails have loved hitching a ride with humans and this is how they’ve managed to reach some of the farthest corners of the Earth. They’re cute in their own right but their appetite can spell disaster for crops in areas where their natural predators are scarce. Good biodiversity is your friend – frogs, birds, lizards and many bugs will happily keep snails in check for you.
But if all else fails, you can always scare garden snails away with coffee grounds – they seriously dislike coffee. That’s probably for the best because the idea of fast-moving, twitchy snails is borderline disturbing.

You’ll want some clover before you scratch your nose

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An angry rescued female stag beetle
An angry rescued female stag beetle (Lucanus cervus)

I was walking on hot asphalt and so was this lovely lady.

Cars were about to join us.

Concerned for the lady’s safety, I volunteered my relocation services.

She objected by running.

Obviously, I insisted by picking her up.

She responded by spraying my fingers with a memorable fragrance.

Stunned but undeterred, I moved her to a safe location.

Just as we went our separate ways, I had a wild realization. (Can you imagine.)

The thing is, I’ve picked up many a stag beetle in the tiny little nature reserve that I run.

(Usually because they got indoors and wouldn’t leave.)

But they rarely ever ran from me, much less sprayed me.

Yet the lady I met today went full battle mode.

I couldn’t shake the thought that stag beetles behave differently around the people they know.

I feel deeply honored.

I would consider nicknaming my beetles if I hadn’t already done so.

PS. Clover is your lucky plant if you need to get rid of angry beetle perfume.