Bonus post of the day:

So, I guess it really might be spring after all.

This pointless photo was taken this afternoon. The vaguely pinkish part would be my hand (excuse the lovely skin. Still healing after that eczema or whatever it was). The vaguely reddish part would be a ladybird beetle. Our friendship was short, as you can tell from the way its elytra are spreading.

Two things are somewhat interesting (well, to me, anyway) about this photo. The first, speaking as a professional (*coughcough*) naturalist, is that this is a Seven-spotted Ladybird. They're what you tend to find most often around here, but they shouldn't even be around here. They're European. Released as biocontrol for aphids. And now... they're taking over. And they're EVIL!!!!!

Ok, so they're probably not evil at all. And apparently the ladybird experts (yes, there is such a thing as a ladybird expert) don't all agree that they're actually taking over. It made for good blather, though.

The second somewhat interesting thing is that I'm holding an insect in this picture. A real, live, could kill me if it wanted to (well, probably not) insect.

You people out there don't realise what a big thing that is.

As a child I was a HUGE entomophobe. Huge. I once had a butterfly land on me, and my parents couldn't get me to go back outside for a couple of days afterwards. If child-me saw adult-me playing with a ladybird, child-me would assume that adult-me was completely insane.

Maybe I am.

But at least I'm not as scared of insects as I used to be.

I even held a dragonfly a couple of years ago. I did. I have proof. Let's see if I can find it... Here. I would have linked to the whole post that the photo's attached to rather than just the photo, but oddly enough that particular post is all about my fear of insects.

I guess maybe blather goes round in circles.

Hmmm.

That sounds like a song cue.

And a way to get out of this post.

See you tomorrow.