I'm wondering if this might be a ladybird in progress? Here on a Rozanne leaf. (From street plot)
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Mirrid bug? On feverfew. And a tiny beetle.
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I saw some tiny weeny caramel and black spotted beetles, ladybird-like, and loads of hover flies of all sorts of sizes. I am trying to pay more attention to the unglamorous bugs that are just as important as the larger and more visible ones such as ladybirds and bees. I guess it's harder to get excited because I don't know what they are.
Today on the street plot were lots of irridescent green beetles and green buzzy flies and tiny crawly things, which is great, even if I have no clue what they are and they move too fast to snap. Of all the flowers in the plot, Rozanne seems to have the most visible/larger bug life on it - vibrating with honeybees and hover flies.
I was lying on the pavement, roasting, trying to capture tiny buzzy things, then ran home to collapse in the shade.
More bees! Makes my heart sing seeing more and more of them in the garden. There were actually quite few this morning and they were giving a pleasant group buzz
This is why I love macro photography. These were incredibly hard photos to get with my set up and they're not the best but this has opened up an entire world I didn't know existed before now. This is the cocksfoot moth on a cocksfoot grass seedhead on the wild edges of my lawn. If you ever want a good reason not to keep your lawn too tidy this is a good one. The caterpillars feed on the seed and then pupate in the stem.
The moth is about 3mm long and to give you an idea of how tiny it is:
To the naked eye it looks plain black but up close it has all kinds of zebra stripes and a peacock eye.
and just to put the icing on the cake I managed to get a photo of her laying her eggs too.
With such a small subject in natural lighting even the tiniest movement would throw out the focus so out of about 50 photos I'm happy to even get these few. One of the blooper photos shows the grass head is infested with tiny red-eyed aphids though which will probably be another species to add to the list if I can find them again. I didn't notice them while taking the photos.
You don't get this with plastic grass...
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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This morning:
I’m very glad I’ve invested in a little macro lens for my phone, it has made quite a difference!