A story about a stag beetle (with a happy end)

in #photography5 years ago

Once my brother came home from school with a small paper box in a plastic sack. Inside, he said, was a dead stag beetle that he found on the road. He wanted to show it to us, but when he opened the sack, he shouted as the beetle he thought was dead bited his finger.

IMG_2649.JPG

We (me, my brother and my parents) were all happy the beetle wasn't dead but it was clear it was exhausted or maybe hungry. We searched for some information about the beetle so we can do something for him and found out he could be happy with some strawberries (adult stag beetles feed on nectar and tree sap and this was just the closest we had).

After a while the beetle started to come alive (it was maybe also because he was in the plastic sack for a while, but my brother genuinely thought it was just a dead body when he picked him up and as a kid he was at that time he wanted to bring it home to show it to us).

IMG_2656.JPG

We live not so far from a forest so when it was clear the beetle will be ok and we cannot do more for him we decided to take him to the forest. We put him to an open box and took it maybe half a kilometer during which the beetle was totally calm and didn't try to escape.

We put him to an old stamp in the forest, said bye and left. As we were turning back and leaving the forest we heard something like a really loud bumble-bee. It was the stag beetle flying above our heads! He made a circle above us and flied back to the forest. I believe he wanted to show us he's fine and to say goodbye as well :)