@zilog6128

such as? like a certain type of plant etc or a house-type thing you’d hang on a tree/fence?

Rough tussocky areas on banks are good for many of the larger Bombus bumblebee species, and yes, those insect houses can be good for the solitary species – cheaper to just make your own with bamboo sticks in a pile in a sheltered area. Bare earth can attract the Andrena mining bees. Even an old bird box will get used by the larger bumblebee species, and they will usually win any competition with Blue or Great Tits for the box. Bottom line is species rich diversity of habitats where possible.

@Marin

hobby urban beekeepers who do all they can for diversity

Such as..? Plonk a bee hive on their urban roof is what most do – that does bugger all for “diversity” as you call it.

phil5556 – support the native species including the solitary bees and bumble bee species which are in serious decline. Don’t get commercial honey bees. Plant lots of nectar-rich flowers, don’t kill the dandelions in your lawn, provide places for native bees to nest.
Commercial bees are best left for places like oil rape fields where there isn’t any biodiversity to start with!

twinw4ll is correct

LOL at Marin the village idiot – just in case you want to argue, I’m an ecologist, I do this sort of thing for a living.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41271-5#Abs1
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/think-of-honeybees-as-livestock-not-wildlife-argue-experts
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189268
https://theconversation.com/keeping-honeybees-doesnt-save-bees-or-the-environment-102931

Banished, if you want a more gentle, civilisation-building game without any fighting. You’ll wonder where your evening went……

Watched it fly over the Solway going from Carlisle to Annan and then up to Dumfries. It did a wonderful banked figure of eight over Annan. What a wonderful sight, and the sound of the engine caused goosebumps.

I’ve used Xilo for many years. I have one domain with full hosting, and a second, for work which is a Mail Only MO-1 – Mail Hosting account for £15.00 per annum plus around £6 or £7 per annum for my .org.uk domain. Great people to deal with if there’s ever an issue, which has virtually never happened.

Karen’s Directory Printer

Vesta Chop Suey, and a glass of Blue Nun or Liebfraumilch for the grown-ups. Those crispy fried noodles and that little sachet of…erm…soy sauce? Mother could make one packet feed a family of 5.

They’re not plastic, but have a look at the Kaskazi Sku ARX (removable deck if required) so surf ski or “sit in” if you wish, also Kaskazi Marlin which is slightly wider. Both have great storage for weekend trips. We have both. Also worth checking out the Cobra Expedition plastic.

I should add I had to sadly give up my Tiderace sea kayak because of an old crush leg injury causing very sudden and disabling leg cramsp that meant I had to get legs out quickly. Really pleased with the Skua ARX.

I’ve just bought a Samsung XCover Pro to replace my old Note 3 because the GPS was degrading as was the call quality. I tend to keep phones for a long time so refuse to buy a phone without a replaceable battery. Also need replaceable battery as I’m often out in remote areas doing fieldwork away from charging so always need to carry a spare. So far I’m very pleased – good battery life, good GPS, IP68, drop tested to 1.5m, decent size screen, reasonable camera etc etc. Only issue is that it is so new, I can’t get a spare battery yet.

When we bought our cottage, we had an electricity pole and a stay about 3 meters from our back door. This would have prevented a future kitchen extension, and the wire stay was a complete nuisance – just the right placement to do some hurt if you weren’t paying attention. Next time the pole inspector came, I had a word with him about this, and asked nicely if there was any chance they could move said pole to garden/field boundary and run cable underground.

Within a week three lads, a supervisor and a mini digger turned up and moved pole/stay about 35m away to the boundary, and dug a trench to take the cable underground to the outbuilding attached to the house, brought in an electrician and re-wired the consumer unit. Total cost – 3 slabs of beer, 3 boxes of biscuits, and a bottle of whisky for the supervisor. I think we were probably very lucky as we’d earlier been quoted 12k to take the cable underground from the next pole about 100m away in next door’s field.

Can I have some baby ones please, if you have any, thanks 🙂

Birch Sawfly – Cimbex femoratus

Not school, but Sunday School, which we hated anyway. Came home and told parents we had learned a new song that morning.
“Oh, what song did you learn?”
“My ding-a-ling”
…silence…
Strangely, we didn’t have to go back

Heel – Aberdeenshire born and bred. Must be a Scottish thing then. Crust is the bit all around each slice. And yes to forkytail, futtret, quine, loon, lum, fair ferfochen ….

My pleasure Jolsa. I like a challenge.

New here, first post, so trying to make a good impression and be a bit helpful. Try Billy Elliston – he has a playlist on No Sheet Music.