Garden Insects etc as 'Autumn' Starts

Most of my rose bushes, especially the wild dog rose shoots, are full of Sawfly larvae now able to thrive as the various tits and other small birds have fledged. Here two different species. Yesterday was a mix of sun and showers gradually getting warmer throughout the day - ideal for insect hunting and for cleaning mouthparts as this Rhingia campestris shows - amazing how it can fold that back into the rostrum. Still trying to get that 'perfect' flower spider image

Latest Batch of Garden Insects

I am still on a quest to record all the insects in my garden - sometimes interesting (!) photos of familiar species like these mating Sphaerophoria scripta and some new species like the bug Dicyphus epilobii.

Recent Garden Records

Latest batch from the garden - still producing some new records like the first image which identifies as Haltichella rufipes which hasn't many observations in the UK though common in continental Europe, the furrow bee species Lasioglossum sexnotatum Ashy Furrow Bee. and Southern Hawker dragonfly.

Latest Garden Safari

Some of the species recorded in the garden in the last couple of days including two new species the Square-headed Wasp and a minute White Fly that looked like a piece of detritus until it landed for a photograph.

Art in the Garden

Sometimes my two major interests, Art and Nature, come together as with this red bug on part of an ornamental bird feeder that has corroded to some beautiful colours. The second image intrigued me until I realised that it is the result of an insect chewing through areas of the flower bud which is pleated much as we do to make paper cuts (eg paper doilies). Otherwise a few more gems from my garden including a Wolf Spider species with very newly hatched spiderlets on its back, male and female Large-headed Resin Bee plus one in the jaws of a Labyrinth Spider and Hummingbird hawkmoth eye - the species list will be very long by the end of this season.