Female Stag Beetle - i.e a 'Hen Beetle'

I found this beautiful creature in my garden. I do try and leave stuff to rot down in my garden as much as possible and so it may well be that this beetle did grow up here - it was mid afternoon and I believe that they normally fly at dusk.
She was 3.5 cm long - yep I was sad enough to get a measuring tape out. Luckily they are slow enough to run back into the house and get the camera etc. The reason I measured it is that certain organisations want notes made of any seen so they can track their spread/population.

Great photos louise, I haven't seen one in the wild for many years.

Brilliant. I haven't seen for years either.
Well done.:acclaim:

I've not seen one either so I am amazed to have found 2 separate ones around here - the immediate surrounding area is fairly suburban, although it's not too far to a bit of wild ground - I don't know how far they fly, but I believe not far so this could be home grown... not much good if there aren't any others around to mate with though:(

FLY:eek::eek::eek: Well I hope they don't fly in my direction louise. Great photos, you are very brave, rather you than me:eek:

They are very slow and as long as you keep your fingers away they are fine. But they do look scary, especially since we are not used to such big creatures in England, most of our things are small and without big pincers!