Whoever named black bears, slow worms, red wolves and prairie dogs should not be allowed to entitle anything, ever again but there are other, more interesting (if not necessarily any more accurate!) monikers

(Some of these photos are from my archive because I couldn't hope to find all these species in a single weekend!)

Gatekeeper



Very much a butterfly of edges and hedgerows, it would have been frequently seen where gates bisected a hedgerow.

German Shepherd



A GSD is a GSD...or maybe not Just prior to World World I, breeders started to worry that the political situation would harm the popularity of a breed with "German" in its name, so renamed it as the "Alsation wolf dog", after a district which has frequently changed hands between France and Germany. They do not, of course, have any recent wolf blood in their veins, and to my way of thinking don't even look like wolves but few people of that era would have seen a living wolf for comparison!

Magpie



"Mag" refers to Magot or Margaret, and "pie" apparently means chatterer. I suppose the inference is that the magpie was named by someone who knew a Margaret who talked too much

Dead Man's Fingers



I guess mycologists have a dark sense of humour This is another of our Ascomyceteae fungi, and very weird it is, too Caught in the wrong light it does indeed look like fingers sticking up out of the ground!

Yellowhammer



Nothing much to do with hammers The name is derived from the German "ammer", which refers to bunting.

Slow Worm



This one is particularly baffling because slow worms are actually lizards that can move reasonably fast - at least, they wriggle under rocks at great speed when I'm trying to photograph them. There seem to be a few theories on the loose as to why they've ended up with such an unhelpful name - one is that they are a "slayer of [earth]worms" and that this has corroded into "slow worm", and another is that worm is simply an old term for snake.

Ladybird



According to the BBC, these familiar creatures were associated with the Virgin Mary, who was often depicted in a scarlet cloak. They were known as "Beetles of Our Lady" during the Middle Ages.

Lynx



Had to end with a cat I have posted this photo before, but what it lacks in detail it provides in explaining the cat's name. No one who sees a lynx at night can forget the experience - its eyeshine is brilliant, mesmorising white. Evidently, this made an impression on the ancients, too; lynx is derived from the Greek world lyngz, which in turn comes from leuk, meaning light.

Because the deer have almost vanished!



I think we might end up being reclassified as tallgrass prairie if things carry on this way, but, regardless, I was glad to see this doe today. She was taking her chances under the noonday sun, but rapidly retreated to the copse when she realised how many people were out on the lane.



She might well have a fawn or two nearby. Roe deer give birth in late May and rut very early in the season - July and August. If I see any bucks within the next couple of weeks, they should have a fine pair of antlers

The trail cam is out looking for badgers again this evening. This afternoon, it caught a magpie on the lawn. I think the quality of the daylight pictures is pretty good for this camera type.



The pictures come complete with barometric pressure, moon phase, and temperature reading. I may never need to look at the Met Office website again!



Finally, I was having a little bit of fun with gif files in Photoshop