Wednesday 21 October
As the nights draw in and each morning takes longer to arrive habits change. The daylight hours (minutes) that I experience are greatly reduced. I leave home underneath the inky-blue morning skies to drive to work and arrive home in the pitch-black darkness.
It’s not helped by the thick cloud and rain. Or the cool winds and well-lit windows of people already settled in for the night.
The doorways around our home and my place of work are scattered with dusty, empty shells of what were various insects. That flew and crawled into webs and lacked the energy or enthusiasm to escape from. They shake and shiver in their silk-spun graves for all to see as the gentlest of breezes swirl around the porches. The spiders that once came out to investigate have long since upped and gone. Indoors.
But alongside them, there is life. If you look carefully enough. So many moths are seeking sheltered space on walls and door frames, utilising all the available nooks and crannies.
Not the only creatures on this planet being drawn to the lights in the houses.
An amazing thing happened last night. The NASA Osiris-Rex probe the size of a transit van landed on a space on a asteroid the size of three car parking spaces. All done 200 billion miles from earth. And it did this via a pre-programed sequence. The aim is to bring back about 2kg of material from its surface back to earth. The trouble is, it won’t get back for a no other three years yet. Miracles everywhere.
The Bald Birder 