Out on the bike today…Another weird wild hop picture. You’re probably going to have to click on the picture (to open the full image) and then zoom in to see this, but the foliage of the two trees on the picture? It isn’t - most of what you’re looking at there is hops.
j
Sticky icky!! I love to crush hop buds into my beer.
Interesting thought. I had idly wondered about collecting some for dry hopping beer - wild hops have low bitterness but can be rather aromatic. I might just have a play with that.
j
I saw this. It looks like a spider but only 6 legs? Its body is almost transparent.
Looks like the partial shed from a dragonfly, or some similar insect.
Whatever it is, it was on the outside of my kitchen window. Weird.
This chubby guy stood frozen in that position for so long I thought he was fake.
Black-billed Magpie.
Well now, I believe I’ve just learned something. That appears for all the world to be what I know as a Eurasian magpie. I just looked up it’s range on wiki and it didn’t include the US. Should I understand therefore that it’s an introduced species and an uncommon sight?
j
I found this:
The North American Black-billed Magpie which looks almost identical to the Eurasian form and was previously considered conspecific (one single species) is genetically closer to the Yellow-billed Magpie.
They are quite common out here.
So it turns out that I have learned something - just not what I thought I’d learned. Thanks.
j
Last night:
We were sitting by our pond yesterday evening when we heard the chatter of an approaching Belted Kingfisher. Their vocalization is one of the bird calls I love hearing. It flew around the pond, dipped in for a goldfish, then landed in a tree.
Before leaving, the silly bird dive-bombed our dog Simi, scaring him a bit.
Bird must have forgotten the rule ‘never try to eat anything bigger than your head.’
I stayed home for the last couple of weeks, and I’m amazed at seeing so many turkeys and deer right up close to the house. It’s really been their year.
I call it “the flying ratchet” 
. A favorite of mine as well.
We’re in Chalons-en-Chapagne tonight, on our way to Strasbourg. Having been travelling all day we went for an after dinner stroll as dusk fell, just to get some exercise, and saw - Woah! - a murmuration of starlings! Never seen one before - a huge flock swerving and jinking over the rooftops, with smaller flocks constantly arriving and joining in.
An amazing sight.
j
Yes, that is the right time of the year for murmurations of starlings, and I have also seen them mostly in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and the general region. But were you close enough to hear them too? I once was in the middle of one and it sounded like tousands of people crumpling newspapers. I was literally bouche bée! (French for Strasbourg, beautiful city)
Nope, afraid not - I guess they must have been a couple of hundred metres away. One of the joining groups flew more or less overhead, but that was maybe fifty birds and I didn’t notice any particular noise.
More common in this area, you think?
j
Very common in that area, but not only. I read about the problems in Italian cities with murmurations pooping all over the place and I have seen them in Germany too, but only from afar.
