Of course, I wasn't really doing the selling. It was these people. And it was more like evening for them. But it was my design; so I do get some commission for the sale (10% actually being quite large in design circles ( Read more... )

... without telling me (let alone asking my permission ;-( ) ... and then lots of other people acted like it had always been at the new location! ( cont... )

I can't think of any other plausible ways in which the slugs would be ending up in my pond, dead, other than having deliberately slithered in there themselves and drowned through failing to get out again. Slugs don't have much in the way of predators - and if they did, those predators wouldn't normally be dunking them in the pond and then ( Read more... )

That was pretty much as far as I got, though, after seeing on the ground a rather large and shaggy twig which vaguely resembled a stick insect. I decided pond-skaters don't exactly count because they are relying on a particular surface. Any other nominees?

I couldn't be quite sure earlier but now I am: I have baby newts! Not merely plural but in triplicate or more!!! They are so cute - just like the adults but much much smaller (or you could say that the adult forms are like baby ones which haven't fully metamorphosed). It's harder to tell the various tadpoles apart, initially; but then the leg ( Read more... )

I do like books but, with the ideal fixing time-scale of this set of problems being anywhere from "right now" to "last year"(!), I think it will have to be in the form of good, free(?), online resources for now. I've done some searching myself for a couple of them and mostly get pointed to useless advertising / header pages, closed down owner pages ( Read more... )

The victim had a great gaping wound in its side. The culprit was easy to identify. Not only was it still hanging around in the immediate vicinity; but the murder weapon, its stalk, was liberally steeped in the drying blood of the victim. I suppose it could enter a plea of insanity - and argue that it just likes dipping its stalk into the fresh ( Read more... )

... in my pond ( Read more... )

Spawn again!

My frogs do seem to operate very much to schedule. I said to various people, based on previous years of data, that it would be March 18th; and March 18th (night of) it was. I bought them the extra pond-weed to lay in just in time.

This time I got to the newt migration site at about the right time; so the result was closer to quits - ie about as many saved (eg by cupping my hand over them as a cyclist approached) as were lost to traffic ( Read more... )