A little bit of artistic license here. This was a photo I took and played with a little. But do you not think the National Trust should use this photo for promotional purposes? They are welcome to have it for free!
Arctic terns are in my opinion one of the most beautiful birds in the world. The problem I have with them is that when they lay eggs and produce chicks, they become the most protective of all parents. This translates into them pecking the head of every visitor to the Farne Islands! this year 2013 is the worst they have ever been, for reasons I am unsure about. A 3 hour visit to Inner Farne was accompani
ed by around 100 pecks!
Over the last few years I have become more cogniscent with nature and insects due to the interest from my 12 year old. Sitting in the garden last week I saw what I thought was a piece of paper or rubbish in the plant pot that is filled with bright blue and yellow pansies and reed type leaves. On closer inspection it was moving and had legs. Quick rush to get camera with Macro lens attached.
Told 12-year-old when she got home and cue excitement and Google searches. No doubt it was a Crab Spider. Now this must be a particularly stupid one as one of their attributes, other than that they resemble a crab, is that they change colour and can camouflage themselves. Considering the pot is filled with bright blue and yellow pansies and green reed type leaves, said Crab Spider did not do a good job being bright white.
Few facts about Crab Spiders. Crab spiders (Thomisidae) resemble crabs. Their first four legs extend out to the sides and are longer than the back four legs. Crab spiders are almost always found outdoors. They do not make a web; instead they catch their prey using their front legs. The crab spider can stay in the same place—a flower or a leaf, for instance—for days, or even weeks, waiting for its dinner to arrive. The good news for me is that the spider is not poisonous, well to me at least, and lives worldwide especially in North America. We recently had a Texan visitor so I am blaming him as all sorts of strange things come from Texas, and most things seem dangerous and poisonous there!
This spider has very strong front legs, and it uses them to wrap its prey. The spider then injects venom into the prey to immobilize it. It eats insects and bees. This is bad news for the many Bees that live in our garden. Crab spiders are reminiscent of water crabs in both shape and movement. They can walk forwards, sideways or even backwards. Crab spiders range in color from pale yellow to white or green. They change their color to match their background, so you may have to observe a flower or leaf for a long time to be able to detect a crab spider sitting on it. Goldenrod crab spiders can change their color to match the flower they are sitting on. It takes about 10-25 days for the goldenrod crab species to change its color to match the flower it sits on. So lets see what our little specimen manages to do in the most few weeks. The good news otherwise for Crab Spiders is that they do live 2 years!
Doing a search on Google images, there are many different types of Crab Spider but this one most definitely is one!
Crab Spider visiting New Malden
The 12- year old went to Marwell zoo on an educational school trip recently and having been allowed to take their cameras they can enter into a form competition only one photo each. But which one? We have narrowed them down to this selection and would be interested to know which one you think she should enter. The entrants are
In summary I really like this city. Although have not seen a great deal of the buildings or architecture, the people are nice, the ambience is warm and importantly the wine is superb. Dinner in a venue like below is not done that often. The food is interesting and relies on veal, either served in small burgers or as Weiner Schnitzel. The streets are complex to cross to avoid meeting trams coming head on but unlike in Milan the aim of the tram is not to hit you but preferably miss you. I shall return.
Dinner Venue Vienna
Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish conservative prime minister, is duly announcing to those who will listen that despite unemployment rates of 27%, that rise to 57% amongst the youth, that the worst is over. What this translates to is that unemployment will fall to 25% by 2016. Not overly encouraging. Although not an expert on the economic aspects of Andalucia I have to report based on a week in Benalmadena that there was no evidence of massive unemployment. That observation has to be caveated by the fact that I was hardly looking for unemployed Spanish youth whilst lounging on the beach. There was a single eastern european beggar outside Mercadona ( the Spanish Tesco equivalent). What was obvious though was that there were far fewer British expats and tourists there than before, a linear annual decline. Fewer English type restaurants and bars, and where these had closed down they were replaced by Spanish bars. As a consequence presumably of all this, less tourists and more indigenous Spainish, prices have fallen considerably. A beer would cost 1-2 euros. In the best bar along the beach side Palm 5, a beer cost less than 2 euros. Glass of wine, and thats of a proper size, was 1-2 euros.
The only clear evidence of economic recession was the absence of building of flats and apartments. But frankly the rate they were building 5 years ago was ridiculous. Benalmadena costa may be a nice place but not that nice. But it is not Monaco! Outside our apartment there is a crane towering over a half finished block of apartments. This in itself is not exciting but when put into context that I have taken the same photograph now for 5 years. That crane has not moved in 5 years. The half finished block remains unfinished and I imagine will look just like that next year.
Benalmar Playa
Benalmadena Costa
My third and final musing over Milan. Whilst walking outside the Milan Convention Centre where an ADHD congress was taking place, a group of maybe 200 protestors aged from 5-60 years. Placards, balloons and a huge inflatable buffalo. The signs do not make sense to me but generally seemed to be protesting against ADHD. No idea why. A lively group but not really threatening at all.
As promised a return visit to Milan was part of the second part of my week, the original visit was a few days before. In summary I remain underwhelmed. Would I go back for a holiday? Never. Would I enjoy a day back there maybe for work? Maybe.
Lets start with the good things. One of the best meals I had for a long time was in a restaurant in the suburbs of Milan called
There was no menu, although it became apparent after a while that there were maybe 3 menus on offer. The 30 euro menu, a 20 euro menu and maybe a 18 euro menu. We had the largest menu. Food and wine were superb. Nothing was less than 100% here. You may ask what was the menu? Well let me try and describe what we had.
Wine was also excellent and I could have been fooled into thinking it was a claret.
The meal aside I found nothing to inspire me in Milan. It seemed that every street was being dug up and walking is a supreme hazard as the one place where cars do not stop are pedestrian crossings. The city seemed grubby, dirty and I saw nothing worth photographing, other than maybe standing on the tram track. Cars seemed to have no rules, overtaking,undertaking, speeding, driving up/down one way streets, rarely stopping at pedestrian crossings, just frankly it all looked dangerous. Milan can be added to my list of places that I will not be driving in, ever.
Signs are almost absent and even somewhere like the Milan Convention Centre was not signposted. Roads all seemed designed to confuse. Cars parked at all angles in all places. If there were happy smiling faces then maybe I missed them. 
An unusual finding while walking around a swimming pool in Southern Spain. At first I thought it was leaves and twigs in an odd pattern but then when I picked it up realised that it was a fossilised dead bird, totally preserved and totally dried out. I have a number of photos and will post a few more later this week but one to keep you going.
Fossilised Dead Bird
Batalha monastery is in Batalha around 130 kms from Lisbon along a nice toll autoroute. In fact it is really the only major thing in Batalha. There is a nice hotel Villa Batalha and some nice restaurants, but without the monastery there is little to entice visitors. You cannot miss the monastery as it towers over the town and is a great landmark to find your way around.
The building took over 100 years to build starting in 1336 and represented the commemoration of a battle. An earthquake in 1775 did some damage and pillaging Napoleonic soldiers did rather more in 1811 but the restoration began in 1840 and was added to UNESCO world heritage sites in 1983. To view all the various segments takes around 2 hours and some degree of internal sat-nav. The Portuguese are not recognised for their signage skills and the first difficulty one has is finding the way in. The second one is to work out that although entrance to the main Nave is free, to get into all the interesting parts costs a mere 6 euros, but no-one actually tells you this. The ticket desk is in fact just that, a desk in the corner. The interior is beautiful. There are many tombs and chapels and there is little point me detailing these as Wikipaedia does a wonderful job. I will only focus on the curious architecture around the monastery. Roads seem unfinished. Piles of sand seem randomly deposited on the road blocking the way for example to the only hotel in the town. The town has great sports complexes, football grounds, swimming pools and even an athletic track. What seemed missing was people. The place other than a few dozen tourists was empty. Cafes and restaurants all with nice smelling foods were essentially empty. Maybe the rain did not help. This is a place worth visiting. A night in the Hotel Villa Batalha. A dinner in a restaurant . A 2 hour visit to the monastery and maybe some coffee and people watching in the squares. I like this place. Even the graffiti is worth looking at.
Woman Sleeping outside a shop. Presumably not dead
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery
Piles of random sand in random roads in Batalha
Batalha Monastery
Soldiers in Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery Soldier
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Tree
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery
Batalha Monastery
chris1957
Arcticterntalk.org 
