I spent a day at Paxton Pits with my head in the meadows and hedgerows and came away with quite a collection of portraits of the colourful, beautiful and not so beautiful inhabitants. The first fly (Phasia hemiptera) was so striking in its colours it caught my eye from a distance so quite an enlargement for this one. The last two flies are both Snail killing flies that lay their eggs on snails (the larvae consume the snails from the inside. The paired flies above these are Sicus ferrugenous and this species waits on flowerheads for a passing Bumblebee, launches itself upward, hitching a lift with the bee and at the same time laying its eggs on the bee. Two extremes of size for the spiders - the first one a Furrow orb spider had its web in the coiled top of a grass while the funnel spider is quite an impressive size for a British arachnid.
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