A Wrap

For this hapless Small Heath it certainly was a wrap.

Only suspicious because it hadn't flown off I peered into the nettle patch for a better look and it was then immediately obvious that this little fellow wasn't going anywhere.
Flying past the thistle it had been snared by the spider crab, was trapped in a pincer-like grip, already paralysed, with fangs sunk deep into it's soft underside. A sorry end but food for another.

The WWT safari at Slimbridge last night was great fun. We were towed by a Land Rover in an open topped and sided 'cattle truck'. Talk about 'insect fest'!! Complete with torches, bat detectors and lamps which attracted a wall of every flying insect for miles known to man we spotted 2 badgers, a fox, a roe deer and a barn owl hunting. Got soaked when it started to rain and I was a tad anxious when the driver - the Reserve Manager, Dave, got lost in an area that he, 'knew like the back of his hand'!! We'd gone down small track which came to seemingly a dead end; a jungle of vegetation in front of us which was at my height in the truck. I'd visions of having to walk back. To add to which the field entrances were so narrow that a very loud bang under our feet signalled he'd walloped the gate post, the wheel rim was dented and tyre went slowly down with each revolution giving a pssst sound.

The guy giving the bat walk was extremely interesting and knowledgeable apart from one slight blip in that the mechanism of my camera trying to focus in the gloom was identified as a 'bird call' he informed us, on the bat detector. I knew exactly what had caused it, bit my lip to stop giggles, avoided Hubs eye and kept tried to keep a 'serious face' :)))

All in all a good evening and rolled into bed about 1:00 ish.