Fierce
“And though she be but little she is fierce.” William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1605) According to my Wild Guide to Britain’s Spiders, March is the beginning of the Zebra Spider season, so I was a bit surprised to … Continued
Possessive
R and I did some more quite heavy gardening this morning, working on a rather tragic old greengage tree in the secret garden, which was blown apart in last month’s storms and has been leaning on other structures or lying … Continued
Second instar
I found this shieldbug nymph in the wild garden this morning, hanging out in a clump of pendulous sedge by the pond. It’s a Red-legged Shieldbug (Pentatoma rufipes), which is unusual among British Shieldbugs in that it overwinters not as … Continued
Autumnal orb-weaver
Before you go all girly on me, she was about 5mm long, which in my book makes her a money spider. She was also considerably more frightened of me than you are of her, and so well-camouflaged against this dying … Continued