Well, I’ve been away for quite some time now. A lot has been happening here where I live and my life has gone through some changes. The biggest change is that I have officially retired. This happened right around the time of the COVID lockdown. Great timing, right?
This past July I finally got to take that vacation I was going to do in 2020 car camping and hiking in the Superior National Forest. That is one of the places where I used to work but this time the pace was relaxed and it didn’t matter if everything on the agenda was completed or not.
I’ve also been doing a lot of exploring where I live and have found many more species of moths, one of my latest obsessions, as well as lichens, fungi, plants, and other living things. Back when I stopped posting the moth checklist was at about 470 species. Now, it is at 763 species and will probably go even higher before the winter weather arrives in late October.
I’m building up the checklists on other insect species, too. While not as large (yet) as the moth lists they have been steadily growing. My focus is on bugs, beetles, wasps, and bees which is enough for now. Down below is one example of the new beetles on the checklist, Chlaenius tricolor (ground beetle), which under certain light conditions has a metallic iridescence. More will be coming soon.
Not Very Far Away 