@Wreybies Yikes! I do like spiders, but mostly those small ones with stubby legs and chubby, little bodies that we have over here. One of the few upsides of living close to the Arctic Circle: bugs are small!
LOL That is one of the downsides of 365 days of summer. Bugs here can carry off your wallet if they had a mind to.
All we have here in the way of poisonous critters are bees, wasps and hornets, and as classification goes, they are right at the bottom of the worldwide pecking order. Worst of the blood suckers would be the midges, but that's cause they are just plain annoying. We do see the odd mosquito but the cold seems to make them quite passive. They are more prone to hitching a lift than going all Count Dracula. For the ouch factor, just out beyond the shore is the place to go, but even so jellyfish stings are quite rare. We do get blooms, but they are mostly harmless Moon jellyfish. Occasional sightings of Portuguese Man O'War, but rarely an injury. Even our sharks are chilled but, let's face it, the water is bloody freezing. (Well, not by the Trian's standards, but close enough.) I just had a bizarre thought. The last of our apex predators, wolves, were killed off years ago, and bears a while before that. We have foxes, weasels and badgers, a few different birds of prey but beyond that, nothing. Makes me wonder if our environment had proved more of a challenge whether the people here would have been less prone to fighting over pretty much sod all.
It ain't so bad (at least not in Sweden). During the summers we can get water temperatures above 24°C over here (west coast).
Spiders are fucking terrifying. I see a picture of one and thereafter, irrationally fear that a horde is ready to ambush me, purely out of bloodlust.
Exactly, 'cause you're in Ruotsi! The Baltic Sea is pretty cold even during the summer -- if you ask me, anyway! But I'm not sure if it's significantly colder 'cause we do get some of that sweet Golf Stream warmth up here. Btw, it was on the news not too long ago that the amount of "big beasts," as we call them, is on the rise. Bears, wolves, wolverines, lynxes... A couple of years ago this photographer, Lassi Rautiainen, became somewhat famous when he took several pictures of two such "friends". While we humans tend to interpret it as something warmer than it might in reality be, it kinda looks like a cartoon friendship between two animals. Photo by Lassi Rautiainen.
That is a stunning pic @KaTrian... first time I've seen it so, thanks. There hasn't really been any question of re-introducing wolves here, as there has been in Scotland. Nowhere in Northern Ireland is far enough, or isolated enough from any place else that the wolves could live out their lives without encroaching on livestock. @Komposten I can swim up at the North coast all year round without a wetsuit, but I'm now carrying so little body fat that around 20 minutes is about my limit. (Used to be an hour when I was younger.) Last time I was camping I pushed my luck and stayed in for half an hour. I padded my way back to my tent, dried off (still feeling fine) popped on some warm clothes and retired to my bed roll with a copy of Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. With minutes of that, I was shaking so violently I thought I was gonna have a seizure. That continued for around two hours, by which time, I'd just about strained every muscle in my body. Suffice to say, I'll not be doing that again.
When we were finally getting our wolves back here in Sweden it was decided that most of them were to be shot. T'was because of some poor inbred animals they said, and shot whatever they could see, inbred or not...
I know this isn't really the place for it, but your question made me remember a video I saw about how the reintroduction of apex predators to Yellowstone National Park literally changed the geographic landscape.
@Vandor78 That's really cool. I love seeing familiar shots/footage from alternative viewpoints, especially something as iconic as this.
"Bloody hell, darling, I've found another one of those peculiar spiders in with my ties. I just don't understand how they get in here." "How strange, sweetheart. Ahem. I don't have a clue either."
Me too I've found this in a 'rare historical photos' collection and plan to upload some more later on.
J.D Salinger working on 'Catcher in the Rye' during the Allied invasion of France. When he landed on the beaches of Normandy, he carried 6 chapters of the book in his pack. [c. 1944 - 45]
I've been given extra reason to doodle and take pics this past week with the run up to Xmas. A couple of very different portraits this time.
I know it's been there for 50,000 years, but I'm damned if I'd stand on it. 984 meters to the bottom.