Different shapes of butterfly scale

Just added this drawing of many of the different type of butterfly and moth scale to the main Lepidoptera page. I could see from photographs that not all scales were the same shape, but I didn't realise that there were so many different kinds. Quite amazing.

So the middle east and north Africa are in turmoil and I am messing about with butterfly scales, and downloading free books on to my Kindle. The world is a strange place, and I feel totally out of it. I read, I walk my dog, I do the garden. The most exciting recent event is the annual snowdrop show of strength as they heave their way up through frozen ground and ice, then present a nodding fragile flower for me to marvel at.

Recognising the common British bumblebees ebook

I've just made an ebook to enable the public to recognise the most commonly seen bumblebees, and I've added it to the downloads page, along with the other ebooks. In this one I've also listed the nesting habits and the preferred flowers of the 6 most commonly seen species of bumblebee. Hopefully that will help gardeners provide not only nesting sites, but also flowers for whatever species they have in their gardens.

If this is a success I might produce more ebooks.

I got a Kindle for Christmas, and I am just beginning to realise the possibilities of mobile content. Now I long for an iphone - I can see what all the fuss is about now.

On a sadder not I have been told that my nice new Canon G11 camera is useless for attaching to my old microscope. So I'm not sure what to do now. It is a great camera for everything else though.