very beesy dandelion

in a meadow full of flowers it is puzzling to see so many bees on a solitary dandelion. There must be something very special about dandelion nectar.

Harlequin invaders

all of these harlequin ladybirds were on one large piece of hogweed in the meadow today. They are displacing the native two spot ladybird and were not even mentioned in my 1985 edition of the Illustrated book of Insects

Miss best tortoiseshell 2010

the prettiest tortoisehell on the block

summer colours

as the summer draws on more and more of our wild flower seed mix is coming into flower, and with the flowers come a wide range of insects, some too small even for macro photography and I am not buying a microscope for Spot (most useful to find his brain I suspect)

queen to be

it was a calm warm day, so the workers decided to release the queens and drones on the one flight of their lives. This queen to be hadn't quite mastered the art of using all four wings.

just jump, will you

this year's batch of young swallows getting ready to go