{"id":4538,"date":"2016-05-27T16:08:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T16:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/?p=4538"},"modified":"2016-06-04T18:41:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T18:41:44","slug":"stag-beetle-at-gunnersbury-triangle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/27\/stag-beetle-at-gunnersbury-triangle\/","title":{"rendered":"Stag Beetle at Gunnersbury Triangle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stag<\/a>
Stag Beetle, Lucanus cervus<\/span>, just landed, wings not fully folded<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was just walking around the triangle, talking to one of the Garden Design students about its natural history, when a mouse-sized animal scurried across the top of a post that we had hammered in to form a dead-hedge above the boundary stones. In my binoculars, it was at once clear what it was, a Stag Beetle. As I pulled out my camera, it spread its wings impressively, and flew a few feet across to the woven top of the dead-hedge, folding its wings but leaving the ends still sticking out of its wing-cases for a while.<\/p>\n

\"Stag<\/a>
Stag Beetle, side view<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, all that work on loggeries may have paid off. Or perhaps it didn’t: behind the dead-hedge was simply a pile of brash and logs, abandoned for several years. Anyway, we’re very pleased to see a handsome adult male out in the sunshine.<\/p>\n

\"Azure<\/a>
Azure Damselfly recent hatch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The triangle’s first batch of Azure Damselflies, surely within a day of hatching, perched on leaves of emergent water-plants, or flew around in cop, laying eggs already.\u00a0 One or two Large Red Damselflies sunned themselves also.<\/p>\n

\"Large<\/a>
Large Red Damselfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

P.S. A week later, on 4 June, a Lesser Stag Beetle crawled across the lawn in my garden. I guess it emerged from the dead wood stacked in odd corners for that very purpose. It’s a lot smaller than the Stag.<\/p>\n

\"Lesser<\/a>
Lesser Stag Beetle in garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lesser<\/a>
Lesser Stag Beetle, playing dead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I picked it up to ensure I got a photo, and was rewarded with a fine display of thanatosis, shamming dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was just walking around the triangle, talking to one of the Garden Design students about its natural history, when a mouse-sized animal scurried across the top of a post that we had hammered in to form a dead-hedge above the boundary stones. In my binoculars, it was at once clear what it was, a … Continue reading Stag Beetle at Gunnersbury Triangle<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[239,90],"tags":[368,712,316,1036,147,39],"class_list":["post-4538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love-of-nature","category-natural-history","tag-azure-damselfly","tag-gunnersbury-triangle","tag-large-red-damselfly","tag-lesser-stag-beetle","tag-song-thrush","tag-stag-beetle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4615,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions\/4615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}