A dark worker...

We arrived back from our Orcadian adventure late last night - and I spent this morning uploading all the photos to the computer! I can see choosing the backblips isn't going to be easy...We loved almost everything about Orkney - the feeling of space, the solitude, the constant sound of calling oystercatchers and curlews, the sweet scent of clover in the air, hen harriers hunting along the road sides and masses of seabirds on the cliffs. And of course the people - the most charming and polite that I've ever met, with the most wonderful, musical accents. A little more sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures would have been nice though - I've never been so cold in mid-July!

Coming back to Peterborough was a bit of a shock to the system. The traffic noise (which is really quite faint) woke me up this morning, and the noise of the pigeons and magpies seemed raucous and unsettling. And then this afternoon, on the way back from the local shops, a gang of teenage boys surrounded Alex, Ben and two of their friends and asked whether they had any good mobile phones (luckily they didn't). But one of the gang got aggressive (apparently he'd recently been dumped by his girlfriend) and hit Alex's friend across the ear - fortunately no serious damage was done.

So one way and another I didn't feel very photographically inspired today, especially as yesterday's sunshine has been replaced by grey gloom. But while I was hanging out the washing I noticed these wasps feeding on the globe thistle flowers. This is a worker of the Median Wasp Dolichovespula media, a recent colonist of Britain, having spread across almost the whole of England since it was first seen in the mid 1980s. It's less aggressive than the common and German wasps, which made it fairly easy to photograph. From the numbers visiting we clearly have a nest nearby. The large papery nest is usually suspended from branches in low bushes, and I'll have to have a good look round tomorrow to see if I can locate it.

I shall start uploading the backblips tomorrow, though it'll probably take a few days to complete the set. And I hope I'll be able to have a look at your journals too, to see what I've missed...