Solstice, and other pagan goings-on

Jad recently e-mailed me a BBC article about Stonehenge, which depicted how thousands of people stayed up through the night just to have the dramatic sunrise moment blotted out by an inopportune cloud. They should have come out to the desert instead! We've been having 100% cloud-free opportunities for pagan worship. This eclipse of Venus by the moon would have been really neat at any Druid's party (thanks, Jad, for waking me up so I could take a picture):

Also popular with the New-Age crowd is this sacred dung beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, or perhaps one of its very similar relatives like Scarabaeus semipunctatus. These sacarabs have been coming out at night on the border by the hundreds. It's hard to think of them as cool, exotic bugs anymore since I am always trying not to step on them. So far, I have seen them roll a dead gerbil on two occasions, but I haven't yet seen one with a dung ball. I did find and dig up two of their hatched nest burrows last winter, which did not even have dung ball shaped cavities. I am starting to wonder if they are mainly necrophage species around here, but I have yet to find one underneath a dead bird.

Thanks again for the great package, Noelle! Of course, with the summer solstice and all these Noelle-ish happenings, I should have guessed I would soon hear from you again.