🇬🇧 Guardian of the forest

Wish and...

June is the month of the stag beetle. Since I now know several locations where Germany’s largest beetle can be found quite reliably, I decided that this year would be dedicated entirely to the stag beetle. I focused all my efforts on finding and photographing it, aiming to create a series of images that capture this magnificent creature in the most iconic way possible.

It starts with a classic shot featuring classic colors. The pose is right, but somehow the image doesn't quite live up to the theme of "iconic." There has to be another way...

… Reality

However, in such cases, expectations, motivation, and reality tend to diverge quite quickly. June started off too cool, meaning any search for these little "antler-bearers" would have been - at the very least - pointless, futile, and far too early. When a heatwave was forecast, I visited all the spots where I had made sightings and taken photographic evidence in previous years - yet there wasn't a stag beetle to be found! Then, the heat became unbearable. A colleague told me the beetles likely enjoyed it - I certainly didn't. Once the temperature finally dropped from "unbearably hot" to “merely hot," I ventured out: two sightings reported by my colleague led me to locations where I had never before looked for stag beetles. And I got lucky twice. I found the first magnificent specimen in a small oak grove my colleague had described. As for the next one (actually there were three, but only one was positioned well enough to photograph), my colleague called me on the spur of the moment, and we met up on-site to go hunting for them together.

All alone in the dark forest. We’re getting closer to the truth – colour plays a crucial role!

This is it! The picture of the day. It looks as though this magnificent male is guarding his territory, on the lookout for intruders. The clichéd image of a wolf sitting on a rock and howling at the moon immediately springs to mind.

And then there are the side effects.

Sweat. Lots of sweat! And ticks! Plus swarms of mosquitoes - so many that it’s hard to focus on taking photos. (That’s when it turns out to be an advantage to go shooting in pairs but focus on the same subject: one person takes the pictures while the other kills the mosquitoes!)

But as is so often the case, the struggle paid off in the end - I am happy with the photos for this year. Let’s see what ideas and opportunities the coming year brings - with the stag beetle.

But this is our hero's true territory - the trunk of an oak tree.

Hi there!