Spotted this magnificent fellow on our front drive. He's a male stag beetle, and about 2 inches long.
Stag beetles are quite rare in the UK now; when I was young, you would see swarms of them on warm, humid summer evenings. Now, you're lucky to see one or two in a year.
But I've inadvertently made a habitat for their larvae, by adding a new layer of bark chips to the front flowerbed every two or three years. I've been doing that for about 15 years now, so the soil is a rich mix of decomposing wood and earth. It turns out it's perfect for stag beetle larvae, who feed off the wood and live underground for three to five years before emerging.
So now, we have gone from hardly ever seeing one, to seeing a couple of dozen every year.
They are amazing animals. Only the males have the big pincers, which can give a nasty nip. Most bugs run off when they see humans. Not stag beetles. They have no sense of fear. They'll raise themselves up and advance manacingly with their pincers wide open ready to strike. Even though they are so much smaller than us, it's remarkably intimidating.
I love the wildlife we get in our garden, and it's really nice to see a rarity like this one.