Birds and the Bees

One thing we have been pretty surprised with are the animals, or lack of, that we have seen. Even though most of our travels so far have been during fall and winter, we figured we would still see plenty of birds and bugs but that has not consistently been the case. Surprisingly, the fewest animals/birds/bugs have been in the warmer areas- Croatia and Cyprus. Although, the day we were commenting on how few bugs we had been seeing, a spider the size of a Yorkshire Terrier’s head showed up on Nick’s shoulder https://www.whatsthatbug.com/2010/10/30/wolf-spider-from-cyprus/

Despite the lack of insects, Europe in general seemed to be very hospitable to bugs as indicated by the bee houses we saw just about everywhere, from the Hague to Saarbrücken to Luxembourg to Trogir, Croatia to Bristol & Oxford UK to Limassol, Cyprus.

We did see snails, although in places we typically do not see them in. in the water in Cavtat, Croatia

In the produce section in the market in Paphos, Cyprus (no we did not buy them.)

Most of the animals we saw were domestic like sheep, goats or horses and birds.

The most birds we saw were ones we almost did not see, the pheasants, grouse and other game birds hidden in the fields in Yorkshire and the Cotswolds. The other birds, were primarily ones on the water