Monday Mercurial: Kitty Kitty

This is our neighbour’s cat. She was never on the bright side of things, and she also used to be a very panicky animal. When we first moved in the cat would not notice our presence, walk up close to us, see us, and freak out completely. It was the easiest sneaking up on a cat ever, because you only had to exist.

By now she got used to us, and our neighbour says that apparently with old age she’s forgotten to be afraid of her own shadow, so I could sneak a few pics.

Monday Mercurial: Duck, Duck, Goose!

The usual residents on any pond are mallards, who I think are underappreciated for their beauty, both male and female, just because they are common. Makes me wonder if people who live in places with colourful parrot that make us ohh and ahh see them the same way as we do with out local wildlife.

Anyway, mallards also feature in the best known German children’s song: Alle meine Entchen (all my little ducks):

It’s a 150 years old and will probably last at least another 150 years: It features animals, is easy to sing and play and describes something even city kids may see and know.

We also got a pair of Egyptian geese at the pond. While originally coming from, you guess, Egypt, they are now pretty common around Europe. They can cause trouble in places where humans like to spread on laws they consider THEIR lawns, but are for the rest harmless.

Monday Mercurial: Jesus was a Duck (because they can walk on water)

I took this pic back a few weeks ago when we had a bit of a cold spell. The pond was partly frozen over with the ducks standing on the thin ice near the water.

Monday Mercurial: Erxcuse me, I’m an Ermine

On our Saturday walk I saw an ermine, which was a first for me.

Yeeeees, I know the quality sucks. I only had my mobile and the camera is rubbish. I’m getting a new one (because the screen is broken beyond reasonable. I’m also getting some heavy duty cover) and this time the camera was a criterion, so hopefully the next time I stumble across interesting wildlife it will be a better quality.

The meadow is part of the cemetery. I guess that’s the part where the anonymous graves are, in that case wave hello to my grandparents. If a small animal burrowing among his ashes cannot raise grandpa from the dead then Jesus stands no chance whatsoever.

Monday Mercurial: Weeeeeee Monkey

Just a cute baby, not much to say.

Monday Mercurial: Chill

From our recent visit to the zoo

Monday Mercurial: Bee happy!

Apparently, one side of our garden has been overtaken by common sand bees/ mining bees, andrena flavipes.

I noticed a lot of activity last week and right now it’s all buzz and swarming. I was at first confused since wild bees are usually solitary and it took me all of my google -fu to find out that the most likely explanation is that it’s a nesting aggregation and the huge traffic we’re seeing right now is the drones hanging around to have a lot of sex before they die, so in a few days the whole thing will be over.

This is a relief because in about two weeks the workpeople will start rebuilding our garden stairs and stuff and I was worried that the bees would get in their way or would have their home destroyed. As far as I’m concerned, having those bees here is like a knighting for my garden as an insect friendly space.

At work!

A different kind of wild bee.

That fruit tree is currently BUZZING.

Monday Mercurial

I went looking through some older pics and I present you: bush dogs. We met these lovely fellows in the Mulhouse Zoo and they’re beyond cute.

Monday Mercurial

From the Barcelona Aquarium

And just for the fun of it:

Monday Mercurial: Fleckchen has grown!

I could have sworn i had scheduled these for last Monday, but they did not appear. There isn’t even a draft, which is something WordPress saves about every 30 seconds. the only explanation i have is that yes, actually dreamed it.

Yet the pics already have tags and alt text, so I’m going to blame it on WordPress eating the post.