Cherry picking-Up the cherry tree

Cherries are and always were my favorite fruits but I can never get enough of them. Though cherry trees grow without any problem in our parts, cherries became one of the most expensive fruits, three times the price of bananas, kiwis or other fruits that are brought from other continents.
My cousin has two sweet cherry trees in her garden and I was invited to cherry picking today. It was about time, before the birds eat up all the juicy fruits.
I was up in the cherry tree in no time and after my stomach was full, I took some pictures too.

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Black cat catching a little bird-photo

This beautiful but bad black cat just caught a little bird in the tree.
While I was taking some flowers shots I heard a terrible noise cumming from the tree near the garage. A beautiful little bird was shouting as loud as it could on the garage top.
I got closer with the intention to take a photo of the bird when I saw this black devil climbing down from the tree, headfirst. With its sophisticated sense of balance and agility it was clinging to the lowers branches until it could jump down, right in front of me. A second little bird was in the cat's mouth.

I can't tell you who was more surprised, the cat or I. I've never seen a domestic cat hunting, they are too lazy for that especially in this hot weather.
Anyway, the cat knew very well the escape path but as I was following it.
It turned back his head, with a threatening face expression, probably to protect its pray and there it was my one time chance to take the picture. It just stood there as long as the camera was pointed at him and than vanished through the hole under the fence.
This is not an excellent picture; the cat was in the tree shadow and I was standing face to the sun.

The bird pair was nesting in the tree. The cat is from the neighborhood, it even had a collar.
I'm not exactly a cat person, though I can tolerate them if I must, but now I was very disappointed and surprised.
On the other hand, cats are made to be hunters. I must admit, this one is in excellent shape and beautiful too. Many people would be happy to have it on a country farm to get rid of rodents.
Plus, it sure doesn't need the firefighters' help to get down from the tree.

CAMERA CRITTERS

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Lunar eclipse-June 15 2011-the darkest night in 100 years

A total lunar eclipse will be observed today, June 15 2011, the longest lunar eclipse of the century and of the last 100 years.

The Moon, Earth and Sun will be lined up exactly on the same axis, the Moon and the Sun being in opposite side of the earth.
The moon will pass through the center of Earth's shadow producing a total lunar eclipse viewed from the earth and a total sun eclipse on the moon.
During this spectacular astronomical phenomena, the moon will change different colors in shades from orange to dark red.

In the following chart you can see the timeline of the entire astrological spectacle according to universal time:

photo source: wikipedia.org

The lunar eclipse will begin at 17:23/UT/, when the Moon enters the penumbral cone of the Earth and the end is expected at 23:02/UT/. The complete phase will last 5 hours and 39 min. The moon will be totally eclipsed for 1 hour and 40 min.

Visibility:

This rare phenomena will be visible to the naked eye for more than half of the globe, in much of Europe, including us, in Romania, South Asia and Indian Ocean region countries. Instead, it can not be observed in Canada and the U.S. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse will be visible just before sunrise.

On the night of 15 to 16 June the lunar eclipse will be observed in Romania too, an 1 hour and 40 minutes of total darkness. I hope we will have a clear night, so tomorrow we can see some great photos of this fantastic event.

The previous major lunar eclipse was on July 16, 2000, lasting for 107 min. and being the longest one of the last century, lasting 107 min. This year, a second, total lunar eclipse will take place on December 10, 2011.

Update:
Unfortunately, not even a star was visible on the evening sky in our parts. Thought it was a bright, sunny day all day long, at sunset the sky was uniformly covered with something that looked like smoke.

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Sweet mock orange shrub-Philadelphus coronarius flower photos

Sweet mock orange-Philadelphus coronarius is a 2-3m high very hardy, deciduous flowering shrub native to Southern Europe and distributed in many parts of the world.

The mock orange shrub is a very popular ornamental plant in gardens and park landscapes in temperate regions, grown for its early summer flower display and highly scented flowers.
The creamy white blossoms look somewhat similar to those of Citrus flowers and also smell like orange flowers or jasmine (Jasminum), hence the name "mock orange". Though not related to the jasmine, in Europe it is usually mentioned as the false jasmine due to its sweet, jasmine-like scent.

The mock orange plant bears light green leaves with serrated edges on pale red-brown branches, forming attractive flowering hedges, when planted in groups.

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Yellow bug on roses-rose photos

The roses are beautiful in our little garden, though they don't take well the over 35° C (95° F) summer heat.

I've found these big yellow bugs on the roses today, they were much over the size of a bee and they could fly.
I've never seen these beetles before and I wonder if they are pests or pollinators.
The rose chafer is green but what could this strikingly-colored creature be? Look at those claws!

There were a pair, the other one had a beautiful pinkish color instead of yellow.
Here they are on the next shot , unfortunately a very bad quality.
The wind was moving the rose bush and they took off before I could take another shot.

Update:
In the meantime I've found out from Anki that these hairy beetles are Bee beetles, Trichius fasciatus and/or Trichius rosaceus. Thank you Anki!

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