On this earth, there are 300 pounds of insects for every pound of human flesh. They fly, they dig, they swim, they bite and sting and spray. And they can make more babies in their lifetime than the whole of humanity ever has. We’re outmaneuvered, outgunned, outnumbered and sometimes outsmarted too. Just something to keep in mind 🙂
Category Archives: Animals
Possibly, nah definitely a leech
One of the best things about creating a wildlife pond is watching new critters move in. This spry little slinkie – unfairly known, as I’ve learned, as the horse leech – has managed to find my magic little lake. And quite possibly, my new friend is exactly what these waters needed… because right now, they’re ruled by voracious dragonfly larvae who could use a good old-fashioned fear of God put into them… Dragonflies can murder their way through a sizeable batch of tadpoles in a disturbingly short time – a relatively well-known fact in the ponding world. But they will also actively stalk small fish, which is much less known about them. Supposedly, horse leeches hunt dragonfly larvae, so maybe nature will balance itself out.
The little park
A little lake in a little pasture
A little friend in a little forest
Not sure what 2025 is going to be about but I know one thing: wetlands matter <3
Ne ribnik ne luža
No, to je ta naša mlaka.
Nastala je tako, da smo izkopali kotanjo za ribnik, ki pa ga zaradi lanskoletnih ujm nismo mogli dokončati. V izkopu se je nabrala voda, ki so jo naše rezidenčne dvoživke vzele za svojo in v njej naredile več mrestov. Za letos kaže, da bo to pač ostala mlaka, zato moram njene prebivalce nekako zaščititi. Lokalna termodinamika je taka, da nad nami kroži vse živo perjadi, nedaleč pa so reka, potoki in jezero, tako bo zagotovo prihajalo do plenilskih pohodov vodnih ptic. Na srečo nekaj malega varnosti zagotavljajo ujede, ki tukaj gnezdijo. (Pozorno oko bo na zgornji fotki opazilo kanjo, ki ravno inšpicira teren.)
Iz zgornje slike se da razvideti, da mlaka leži na dnu globokega dela kotanje, ki je na severu zamejena s strmim bregom, na jugu pa z nasipom. V bistvu je to zelo široka terasa s poglobljenim srednjim delom. Leži na sredini pobočja, ki se z vrha hribčka (420 m n.v.) spusti v grapo (320 m n.v.). Trenutno meteorne vode prosto tečejo v kotanjo. Teren je iz laporja, ki vsebuje nekaj gline in gleja, nasip, ki zapira kotanjo na južni strani, pa je iz mešanega materiala. Vodostaj, ki ga vidimo na fotografiji, je tista količina vode, ki vztraja ne glede na vreme. Viški pa hitro poniknejo, za moje pojme še prehitro.
Kotanja ob nalivih funkcionira kot polsuhi zadrževalnik, ki prestreže vodo s pobočja, da ta ne odteče prenaglo. Takole je bilo videti, ko so povsem sveže izdelan, skrbno oblikovan izkop za ribnik zalile in zverižile ujme. Če ne drugega, pa se vsaj ni vse skupaj odpeljalo v grapo, tako kot so se drugod po državi cele vasi, temveč je lepo počakalo, kjer je. Tudi to je ogromno vredno.
Kotanja je dolga vsega skupaj 30 m in široka 10 m, globoka do 2 metra. Mlaka (približno 3,5 x 8 m) je nastala v njenem najglobljem delu, ki je vkopan v glej, torej tisto modrikasto sivo glini podobno prst, ki jo vidimo tudi na levi strani fotografije; ta najgloblji del je vodotesen, preostalo pa očitno ne. Mlaka doseže globino približno 40 cm.
Prvi paglavčki. Na posestvu živijo krastače, žabe in močeradi, tako da ne bi bila presenečena, če bi v mlaki migotalo potomstvo vseh. Vse črno jih je bilo, a ko sem prišla čez nekaj dni, sem pa komaj kakšnega našla. Morda so se poskrili, morda pa so mlako obiskale race. Sumljiva mi je tudi odsotnost odraslih primerkov v bližini mlake, in upam, da jih ni kaj pojedlo.
Trenutno se sprašujem, ali je kakšna realna možnost, da se kotanja v doglednem času “samozatesni”. Prvotni načrt je bil zatesnitev s folijo, zdaj pa razmišljam, ali bi morda šlo po naravni poti. Seveda skušam ugotoviti tudi to, kako opremiti mlako in kaj zasaditi, da bo sistem čim stabilnejši in da bo omogočal osnovno varnost za svoje prebivalce (zavetje, kisik, kemijsko ravnovesje).
A beautiful darkness
I haven’t written much in a while. And guess I should figure out the new layout before I get started so here’s a picture of this wonderful creature I saw today.
The breed is called Cemani. Originally Indonesian, it is so striking in appearance and demeanor it made me wonder if I should buy a farm just so I could watch these stunners strut about in the yard.
(In other news: everything I care about seems to be going alright; a wordier post coming up soon.)
Brunhilda and the hand that feeds her
Just so that we’re clear, I came equipped with the usual set of pre-programmed physiological responses and they’re all here and accounted for; I assure you that I am just as fazed by the sudden sight of anything potentially dangerous as the next person. My fight, flight or freeze reaction is alive and well and easily triggered by creepy crawlies, the fact I am willing to extend my hospitality to an occasional charismatic arthropod notwithstanding. It’s just that I don’t continue panicking after having judged a stimulus mostly harmless and as far as I know, all central-European arachnids including my flatmate Brunhilda the diadem spider are harmless to the point of being helpless against humans, save for their potential to send us running by the sheer power of their presence. I am not fearful of Brunchy but if she catches me by surprise… Well here’s a video of what transpired when her delicate claw-foot made contact with my fingertip as I was attaching a snack to her web:
As demonstrated here, the FFF response of this particular human is accompanied by an alarm call. The volume of the distress signal may range from a loud gasp if the room acoustics are deemed adequate to a blood-curdling screech reserved for open spaces, but invariably there is some degree of vocalisation. (Yes I’m a shrieker and unabashedly proud of it. As luck would have it, one of my neighbours wails like a banshee when startled and hilarity ensues each time we unexpectedly bump into each other in the basement. Since the birth of humanity, it was people like us who had kept their fellow humans safe by instantly alerting them to threats real and imagined. These same individuals also excelled at obliterating the element of surprise from hunting expeditions whenever a scary bug moved into sight, which just might have been the driving force behind humans largely giving up on hunting for their meals and settling down to take up agriculture instead. So yeah, we shriekers have shaped history in ways you can’t begin to imagine.) Continue reading Brunhilda and the hand that feeds her
Brunhilda and her Anthropophobia
I love it when Mother Nature steps forward to solve my problems. Until quite recently, a prominent grievance of mine were germ-taxies (houseflies). I’m locally famous for my knack at capturing them, which I suppose is fine. The thing is I’m keen on recycling and I felt bad for having little choice other than flush perfectly edible insects down the drain as I had no pet I could feed my prey to. That was, until Brunhilda came to my rescue.
The first time I saw her was when my darling lured me over to the bedroom by announcing he had something to show me and directed my gaze to the window above my side of the headboard. I was thrilled to see that while I was out, a newly-arrived friend had fitted it with a pure-silk, certified-organic flytrap that cut right through the airspace so cherished by insects. Brunhilda was sitting at the centre of her creation, looking a bit tense. I stood up on the headboard, inspected her up close, looked at my man and said, “Her butt looks flat, we need to fatten her up.” From then on, each captured fly has been presented to our new pal and she seemed to approve of this arrangement because Brunhilda, also known as Brunchy amongst her flatmates, is a diadem spider. And fatten her up we sure did.
The old man’s daughter and the son of The Buck
It’s official, animals have lost their last remnant of respect for us. We people have changed and shed some of our feistier habits that used to keep them in check. In the old days, people went vegetarian only after they’ve run out of animals to hunt and any beast foolhardy enough to wander into a human settlement was facing two possible outcomes. In the highly improbable case it was judged too ugly to eat, the creature was greeted with a hailstorm of sticks and stones and sent from whence it came, its self-esteem curbed somewhat. Given that people weren’t such fussy eaters in days of yore, it was massively more likely the intruder was interpreted as a surprise food delivery and treated accordingly. After the humans were done picking its bones clean and rhythmically banging them together thanking the God of Foolishness for the feast, they tanned its hide and made it into warm slippers and a new handbag for the village First Lady, and if the creature had antlers or fangs of any consequence, they were repurposed as spear tips to welcome the next rambler of its kind with added efficiency.
Continue reading The old man’s daughter and the son of The Buck
The old man and the deer
My grandfather always knew right from wrong. It seemed that his inborn sense of justice was so strong it rubbed off on even the most hardened crooks and made them realise the error of their ways. What was especially amazing about it was that this effect wasn’t limited to people; well at least we, his family, are at a loss of how else to explain how gramps succeeded in making a deer repay what it had stolen, and quite dramatically at that. There’s a well-travelled saying of ‘Treat others like you want to be treated’, also known as the Golden Rule (which happens to be the reason I’m hoping that the few masochists I’m bound to run into sooner or later are as little ethically-enlightened as possible). There’s a substantial volume of theoretical substantiation of why the reciprocal approach works but I’m probably not the only one who’s felt that it would be nice to have some actual proof too from time to time. And sure enough, my grandfather stepped up and provided the factual corroboration I had hoped for.
Inside, grandpa was a gentle soul but it didn’t stop him from being as tough as a coffin nail. Born a son of humble charcoal makers, his childhood was rife with hardship and he used to say that his family was so poor they couldn’t afford to feel sorry for themselves. He grew up to become a steel worker long before occupational safety was a thing but not before he was taken prisoner during WW2 and made it back on foot, so suffice it to say his adult life wasn’t much gentler to him than his youth. Not that it held him back much; against all odds and despite all the rust he had eaten at the steel plant and the frostbite he had to remind him of the horrors endured in the POW camp, he lived to a ripe old age – way too old for his liking – and he regularly complained about having to wait so long to join my grandmother. Reckoning you can’t know for sure if there’s an afterlife until you’ve found out by yourself, he worried that there was one and, knowing his wife, he feared she was up to who knows what.
The slow-trotting tom a.k.a. One cat to rule them all
Okay, so maybe I’ve been guilty of not taking people too seriously when I heard them talking about how their cat was the coolest one ever. We might as well set this straight once and for all: your cat may be cute, adorably silly, feisty or whatever but, with all due respect, it is NOT the coolest cat ever. This distinction is reserved for Bon, a majestic tom that had once reigned over our neighbourhood. He was the rudest, toughest, meanest and the most inconsiderate cat imaginable with a commanding presence and some serious swag to boot. He didn’t take crap from anyone, didn’t care what anybody thought and never ran from an adversary. Well actually he never ran at all but merely accelerated to a leisurely trot if he deemed it appropriate, and if that’s not a super cool cat then show me one that is.
We came under Bon’s rule when my father, oblivious to what he was getting us all into, accepted a weighty pet carrier from a frail old recluse who claimed she was getting too old to continue taking care of her cat for much longer. In retrospect, she most likely feared for her dear life and thought it would be best to unload her rowdy beast on a family of able-bodied individuals. My mother and I had no knowledge of dad’s noble dealings and we arrived home to find a puzzling note on the boiler room door, a blood-stained piece of paper with the words “DON’T OPEN SIAMESE INSIDE!’ scribbled on it. Intrigued, we pried the door open and were promptly greeted by, well, not so much a growl than a proper roar. Clueless as to what but a royally-indignant lion could produce a sound like that, we deemed a hasty retreat a fitting response. An emergency congregation later we embarked upon investigating the source of the petrifying noise and cautiously peeked under the central heating unit to be met by an icy glare from a pair of piercingly-blue eyes. Incensed at our failure to keep a respectful distance, the owner of the frosty peepers hissed and spat at us, which prompted my mum and me to decide that her sillier half should be committed to a special institution for whatever it was that he had brought to our house this time.
Continue reading The slow-trotting tom a.k.a. One cat to rule them all