Look at the birdie

This is not a very good picture - I'm aware of that - but I've been stalking this bird for days. So to get a picture with something almost bird-like in it feels like a success! It's a Blackcap (type of Warbler) and has the most beautiful chattery flute-like song you could imagine. It has a perch on the other side of a laurel bush from our terrace and sits there throughout our lunch singing its little heart out.

I discovered today that in the early evening it likes to feed on these berries (look like elderberries, but something different?) So I managed to get enough shots of it that we could identify it in the Birds of Europe book.

Typing this out on the terrace (too hot inside) and we've just been divebombed by the biggest beetle either of us have ever seen ("outside the Amazon" adds Mr B, but he's just being flash). It was about an inch and a half long (4 cm) and white with black spots. It was pretty fat too (3/4 inch? - 2 cm). I skedaddled inside as soon as it appeared and shouted instructions to Mr B on how to get the memory card out of the reader and make the camera work as the beetle sat (ironically) on my insect bite ointment looking slightly stunned.

Another different kind of enormous insect just arrived - "the size of a bat" I'm told. Perhaps it was just a bat? Anyway, I think it may be nature's way of telling me to go to bed now.

Backblipped for yesterday. Just got some shots of that beetle (came back and sat on Mr B's arm) Will put them on flickr tomorrow.