Butterfly sex is not easy. Once you and your partner have found a more or less stable position on a stem of a Great Burnet flower (Sanguisorba officinalis/Grote Pimpernel), number 3 turns up and wants to join the party. Now things really get difficult ...
This morning the alarm-clock went-off 1½ hour earlier. Before work, I went to the Leijgraaf, a small brooklet, near Uden to search for insects. Soon I found this emerging dragonfly. Experts told me that it is a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum/Bruinrode Heidelibel). Unfortunelately (my damned sense of duty), I could not wait for her first flight. But there was plenty of time to make both a macro and a wide-angle version. Which one do you like better?
However, I also spent a few early mornings on scrutinizing a small mountain pasture close to our chalet. Here are my best results: Pearly Heath (Coenonympha arcania/Tweekleurig Hooibeestje), Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia/Bosparelmoervlinder), and some Marbled Whites (Melanargia galathea/Dambordje). The latter is very appropriately coined “checkerboard” in Dutch. 
From July 3rd to July 17th, I was on summer holiday in the Vosges, France. It was sunny and hot. I very much enjoyed reading “The Cosmic Landscape” of Leonard Suskin, with deepened my understanding of both quantum mechanics and cosmology. It enlarged my insight in these difficult subjects much more than when I studied physics at university.
What a day! Today the Dutch football team beat Brazil with 2-1, and went on to the semi-finals. Not only the match was ‘hot’, the temperature raised above 35°C. A big heath-fire on the “Strabrechtsche Heide” was hard to control. The fire-brigade was busy till after midnight, using helicopters to transport water taken from the local canals. In the village Nuenen, where I live, you could see and smell the smoke. Not far from there I was waiting (sweating like hell; it was still well over 30°C at 20h30 PM when this photo was taken!) under my camo-burka for this breeding Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus/Nachtzwaluw).
