Love at first sight

[Shearno]

Last night just before nine as I was watering the garden (watering can and rain water from the water butt) I noticed a female Stag beetle high up on the branch of a shrub, I gave her a fine soaking with the watering can and she didn’t move, when I had finished, while putting things away in the garage I noticed another stag beetle, this one looked like it had crashed landed on the concrete and seemed distressed as it was in a small pool of water. I picked it up using a leaf, thought it might be male as it had antlers? Even though they where quite small compared to others that I have seen in the garden previous years. Well, I placed it up on the same branch as the first beetle and within a couple of seconds of seeing each other the male climbed on top to mate, I was (they were) confused at first, as after being in the correct position the male turned the other way round, thought I might have sexed them incorrectly, but after a short time he moved back round to the correct position. They stayed locked in that position for quite a while, my 11 year old son had his sex education video that day in primary school and was fascinated to watch and gave a running commentary of exactly what was happening! After about ten minutes with some attempts at close up photography with my digital compact and son’s camera phone, it was his bedtime so we left them to it, pleased to have played a part in life cycle of this gentle giant.

[mrs fish]

Can you post a pic ? It would be good to see a pair to-gether

If they were smaller they could of been Lesser Stags