At the risk of turning this blog into a Boydathon, The Ranger is unable to resist this awesome photo of one of his favourite spiders, Tetragnatha extensa.

Captured by Ian Boyd, this loving couple's nuptial photo reveals a lot about just why this strange and lovely spider looks as it does.

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Once, on a crossroads in the middle of the Isle of Wight sat a rather anomalous leyland cypress tree. Some years ago for some reason, be it stormy weather or vehicle impact, it fell down, was mostly removed, and left a substantial stump. The stump sat on one of the most prominent verges on the Island, and little if anything was thought of it - certainly not by its owners, the Isle of Wight Council.

This was the situation in Arreton Cross until summer 2008, when a combination of factors led to a remarkable transformation of the treestump and the surrounding area of grassland and scrub. The Isle of Wight Council and the local Arreton Parish Council both agreed that something needed to be done to transform the dismal-looking verge. To cut a (very) long story short, the IW Council employed local charity the Island 2000 Trust to work with volunteers from Arreton to improve the site. Lots of work was done, including carving the treestump into a splendid proud hare alongside two amorous magpies, entitled "Good Omen".

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In 2007 The Ranger wrote about his local colony of Philanthus triangulum, the European beewolf. Sadly, in 2008 the fearsome little things were nowhere to be found - perhaps they despaired of the dismal weather. In 2009 too I searched without success, but inspired by Ian Boyd's find in Newchurch I recently went back for a second look at the sandy banks on Ryde seafront. This time sharp eyed Cat spotted the tell-tale signs of excavations a little way away. It seems that the original site had been covered by drifting sand over winter and now seemed too sandy even for these sand-loving creatures. But not far off they were hard at it, murdering bees industriously.

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

It’s that time of year when la famille Wildlife Gardener hitch the donkey to the cart and trot off to the local showground for the annual bonkersness that is the village fête. Entirely homespun and mentioned in The Times as among the Top Ten best village fêtes in the country, not even the soft soaking rain drizzling down from dark clouds over the North Downs could deter the inhabitants from having a Jolly Good Time.

Highlights this year included: Guess The Combined Ages of Two Pregnant Dairy Cows (in days), Win A Mini (to drive around for the weekend then give back) Terrier Racing, Crockery Smashing, and Slippery Pole Pillow-Fighting as well as big mugs of tea, slabs of coffee and walnut cake and scones and jam served from the tea tent by the doughty ladies of the village.

But what’s going on here?

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There was a time, way back, when the Virtual Ranger really was a ranger - complete with Land-Rover, chainsaw and radio. An enjoyable feature of that status was the number of people who said to me 'Ooo, what a lovely job! I wish I did that." Not that I felt inferior in any way to my peers who'd gone straight from university into accounting, commercial publishing, finance and so on; nor was I jealous of their allegedly prodigious remunerations. Still, I couldn't help but crack an inner smile when I imagined how rarely "I'm a merchant banker" would have been greeted by "Ooo, what a lovely job...".

These days I spend most of my days pushing a mouse, and don't get to see the countryside as often as I'd like. So you can probably see the glee in my face in the picture above, where I actually get to climb a tree as a part of my job. Yes, friends, they paid me to do this: your taxes strapped me in and hoisted me up. Thanks! And if you want to know why, read on.

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The Ranger received an intriguing email recently from Naturenet reader and amateur freelance nature photographer Russell Edwards. It contained the following image.

Russell explains:

I observe a badger sett in Suffolk and for this purpose use a "game" camera which is triggered by any movement in front of the camera. The camera works 24 hours a day and during the night takes pictures by infra red.

It was while monitoring a fox family that this picture of a UFO appeared. I've been trying to work out what caused it apart from little green men from Mars.

There are 10 wing beats. The shutter speed was a 1/10 of a second making it 100 beats per second. By measuring the dimensions of the tree I calculated the length of the track to be about 10 feet. That is 10 feet in a 1/10th of a second, 33 yards a second which is about 67mph.

Intriguing! So, what could it be?

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Now this is probably going to sound a bit nerdy. But here goes anyway. At a family wedding recently The Ranger had the pleasure of visiting the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. Needless to say, he took a professional and critical interest in the facilities - after all, he's supposed to look after various seaside areas on the Isle of Wight. When his aged mother was offered a stroll along the esplanade she readily agreed - but wasn't to know that she'd soon have to endure her son tutting at the state of the flowerbeds and poring over the bye-laws signs. Yes, friends, park-nerdery. When I should have been concentrating on wedding festivities, I was obsessing over the details of path surfacing and mowing regimes. Busman's holiday, really.

A stark warning from Tendring District Council at Clacton West Beach

It was actually quite pleasant - if you ignored the booming strains of Chuck Berry amplified from the pier, which - going on all weekend, even at 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning - seemed a little inappropriate. Still, families were already settling in for a day of beach fun, so obviously they didn't mind it.

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