Close encounter
The mini-heatwave that the weather forecast has been promising us arrived today, reminding me that however grumpy I get when it’s too cold or wet for my insect subjects to be on the wing, many of them don’t appreciate it … Continued
Sunday Marmalade
I don’t generally start the day with sugar, but I thought What the heck – it is Sunday, after all, so I had toast and home-made Seville orange marmalade for breakfast. It is, of course, entirely coincidental that when I … Continued
Twenty two
There’s something mildly amusing about a creature that’s less than five millimetres long having an extremely long name, and this tiny ladybird would probably be astonished if it knew that humans have named it Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata. The Germans call it … Continued
Summer Solstice
Hmmm. It would have been easier to tell that it was the longest day of the year if the sun had ever shown its face. Instead it was overcast, dark and dreary. And windy, and quite cold. On the plus … Continued
Another day…
… another Large Red Damselfly. This one, though, is a newly-emerged female, and – yay! – she came out of our little free-standing patio pond. Shortly after I took this she hied herself away to the trees to feed up … Continued
Just resting
R chugged into my study this morning while I was still wondering what to do with my day, and told me that he’d just spotted a damselfly nymph climbing one of the pond plants, and if I got a shift … Continued