Last night the stag beetles took flight, this was the main event and the epicentre of Stag-Fest was my back garden - and what a spectacular sight it was.
There is a limited stag beetle flight-night most years but the main event - the really big ones and lots of them - only happens once every seven years...
It takes a stag beetle 7 years to reach maturity (spending most of its life as a grub) and when they take flight they only have about a week left - fight, breed and die!
So the next big event will be in 2024 - hopefully I'll have a better camera by then. But a rainstorm last night may have interrupted proceedings, so they might be out again tonight - fingers crossed.
What has this got to do with fishing?
They don't normally fly until mid-June, nature is about 3 weeks ahead of itself. The last of the spawners have spawned (carp and barbel) - everything is ready for the new season - just over 2 weeks.
And I've uploaded a couple of videos of these mini-monsters to Instagram (no login needed), awesome creatures.