Beetlemania

Riding my bike to work has been fun this past week: every morning, the trees along the bike path are swarming with very large metallic green beetles, each well over an inch long. I think this picture is representative of the breed:

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These beasts are constantly flying back and forth across the path from tree to tree and then down to the wood chips that cover the ground nearby, where whole flocks of crows wander the area gorging themselves.

Meanwhile, I am a fast-moving object plunging straight through the middle of it all. I'm sure the beetles are basically harmless, but that doesn't make it any less alarming when they bounce off my helmet or thwack between my backpack and my collar. I've taken to riding in full hunched-down racing position just to minimize my cross section, and I probably look pretty goofy ducking all the time.


(*)(Image available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 from this Wikipedia page; original photo by User:Jengod.)