ON THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST

31st of August 2021 marked a typically hot, slightly humid end of that happy month.

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I spent most of that day on my favorite stretch of coastline ...

... situated about seven kilometers from my hometown.

The sea was blue, and so were the distant fragments of geography across the bay.

The sky was also blue.

The differences were only a matter of shades.

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Various boats were passing across the quiet seascape. I saw elegant white sailing yachts ...

... small fishing boats made to be used in the calm waters of the bay ...

... and only one speedboat of the port authorities.

A man in a relatively big small boat was cleaning some stuff and preparing the fishing nets, anchored near some rocks that appear above the surface only at low tide. The cormorants looked very interested in whatever was going on in the nearby boat.

I didn't photograph only these distant blue things on that day.

I was also interested in stuff that was going on in the grass around me ...

... and I brought the macro lens with me ...

... so I caught this Pholidoptera littoralis bush cricket ...

... well camouflaged in the dry, grassy environment.

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Here, I zoomed into the blue distance again. The main protagonist of this photograph it's the lighthouse on the shore across the bay.

This is a portrait of one of the lovely small clouds that were floating in the blue above the land and sea, and in the following photograph ...

... you can watch the same cloud dissolving.

I found this cricket on the blackberry shrubs ...

... that grow and prosper on the dusty terrain near the sea.

Pachytrachis gracilis is the name ...

... of this bush cricket species.

This dog ...

... was sniffing up and down the dusty road bordered with tall grass and thorny shrubs.

Here you can take a look at the distant cement factory ...

... situated on the stretch of coastline across the bay.

This is a village not far from the factory.

Here you can take a look at the stretch of a very distant Dynarid mountain range.

In this photograph, the focus is again on small things found among the foliage around me.

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This minuscule spider, I don't know the exact species ...

... has caught some even smaller insect or a larva. The scene was photographed on the lower surface of the blackberry leaf.

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Here you can take a look at some fluffy, shape-shifting clouds, and in the following photograph ...

... the focus is on another creature found and photographed on the blackberry shrubs - the nymph of the Anacridium aegyptium grasshopper.

Here you can see another distant stretch of coastline

The coastal rocks are pretty high in that place. High and devoid of vegetation. Maybe not completely, but if there are plants there, they are too small to be visible from my side of the bay.

Here you can see more clouds ...

... and here, you can see the edge of a distant island turn into an illusion.

Here you can see yet another cricket photographed on the blackberry shrubs.

This is the Decticus albifrons, one of the biggest bush cricket species in this area.

At one point ...

... a small fragment of rainbow appeared in the distance.

This inflatable kayak was passing by.

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The little red boat looked great in the wider blue picture.

Meanwhile, on the firm land, the young mantis was searching for something to eat ...

... and a group of cyclists was resting among the aromatic vegetation near the sea.

Sometimes the sea currents and atmospheric conditions create this interesting seascape.

The water in the bay gets separated in a pretty weird way. It's a relatively rare phenomenon here.

This is the Crithmum maritimum plant. On its minuscule flowers ...

... I photographed a pretty peculiar wasp ...

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... the Mutilla europaea. This is the male. Only males have wings.

The wingless females can be easily mistaken for ants. And in fact, they are commonly known as velvet ants.

As the lazy summer hours were passing, the early afternoon was turning into an overture for the evening, the people in the small fishing boat were patiently waiting for a big fish ...

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... and the winged, reproductive ants started swarming above the shrubs and meadows along the shore. If you enlarge this enlargeable photograph, the minuscule black dots will be visible as small winged silhouettes.

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And that's it. I didn't take any photographs later in the evening, so the post has to end here. Hope you enjoyed a breath of summer. As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.