This morning I was surprised to find a big stag beetle lying upside down on the balcony. It looked dead. But when I went to pick it up, it clung to my finger with that rather scary grip they have and started making its way up my arm, swimming through the hair.
Normally the young master is reluctant to get up on Saturday mornings, but when I went into his room and announced absently, "I have a stag beetle on my arm this morning", he got up rather quickly. Apparently I was handling it all wrong, and he rushed out in his pyjamas and stuck it on the big tree. We hope it's happy in our tree.
When I was moving the compost from its old location, I found three or four huge white grubs buried in the ground which I think must have been stag beetle larvae. I carefully reburied them in rich soil elsewhere in the garden, and I suppose this might be one of them. How it found itself upside down on the balcony is anyone's guess.
The stag beetle will have to take its chances with the brown butterflies that come to suck the sap. These butterflies don't take crap from anything that comes to the tree. They even tangle with the huge hornets that come to visit.
Normally the young master is reluctant to get up on Saturday mornings, but when I went into his room and announced absently, "I have a stag beetle on my arm this morning", he got up rather quickly. Apparently I was handling it all wrong, and he rushed out in his pyjamas and stuck it on the big tree. We hope it's happy in our tree.
When I was moving the compost from its old location, I found three or four huge white grubs buried in the ground which I think must have been stag beetle larvae. I carefully reburied them in rich soil elsewhere in the garden, and I suppose this might be one of them. How it found itself upside down on the balcony is anyone's guess.
The stag beetle will have to take its chances with the brown butterflies that come to suck the sap. These butterflies don't take crap from anything that comes to the tree. They even tangle with the huge hornets that come to visit.
1 comment:
Hi,
This is actually a male Japanese rhinoceros beetle: Allomyrina dichotoma. In Japanese it's called kabuto-mushi. People are often surprised to learn that they fly (and are attracted to lights) which is probably how he ended up on your balcony!
Cheers,
Nigel
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