Antarctic Echoes might be a good choice...

Time to put away the holiday brochures and write another blog update. I am thinking of postponing my planned trip to North Korea for a bit anyway. At least until the terrible twosome stop trading insults. Just who does that Kim Jong-un think he is, with his double-barrelled name? He needs to take a chill pill and put some Vangelis on the iPod.

As for Mr Trumpton, he says his hands are too big: not the body part I had in mind! Anyway, I didn't mean to start with a rant that has nowt t'do with this blog, so let's get back in the saddle eh. So what's new Johnboy? Well how about this spider egg-sac that I discovered under a bramble leaf whilst walking in the woods...

I flipped the image so that you don't have to practice the 'shirshasana' Yoga position to view it. I thought, well, assumed really without checking, that this would be the egg-sac of a garden-cross spider (Araneus diadematus). It looked the part. However, as is often the case, first impressions can be way off the mark. Where is the mark by the way? Have you seen it? 

What did make this construction then? A wasp? Did you say wasp? Well done...

It looks like a Braconid wasp, but can't be that. So what then? Hymenoptera for sure but no idea as to species yet; I do know they were tiny and there were legions of them that emerged. 

I have been following the progress of some large white butterfly eggs that appeared on the nasturtiums in the garden...

Unfortunately, overnight rain took its toll on some of them...

                   

             

Others did survive though, and in this next picture you can see that they are nearly ready to emerge, the heads are at the top of the eggs...

It wasn't long before new life was emerging...

The newly emerged caterpillars eat the eggshells as a form of nourishment. 



Now the caterpillars have all become chrysalis' and probably will stay in this state until next spring...

There are two distinct colourways...

This looper caterpillar was doing a pretty good job of pretending to be an oak twig when I spotted it...

The buddleia bush in the garden continues to attract insects. I have counted seven species of butterfly now...

According to BBC Springwatch, Red Admiral numbers have increased by 200%

From Buddleia to Buddha...

Whilst out driving in my Volkswagen Golf car, which somebody rather rudely described as "an old banger", I had to stop and investigate when something dropped on to the windscreen. It turned out to be a Red-legged Shieldbug and so I thought it would be rude not to grab a photo or two before sending it on its way...

On another day, I was sitting in the car at the entrance to my local woods when this critter flew in the open window...

Despite it being September, this is a Mayfly. 

Now here's an interesting observation...."Where?" Well it's coming, just be patient! "Good things come to those who wait" is what my mammy would say to me: I would reply, "Yes, but only the stuff nobody else wants". Here it is then, I saw this Tree Damsel Bug in the garden recently...

A Tree Damsel Bug - Himacerus apterus

Perhaps it arrived in the garden from next door's conifers, where they feed on aphids and others small insects. The damsel bugs I mean, not the neighbours. What intrigued me though, was the fact that it was drinking, or appeared to be, from the bird bath water. I had no idea these bugs would actually drink in this way but its proboscis was definitely in the water.


Shall we end this update by returning to where we began then: Araneus diadematus, or the Garden-cross Spider. There are quite a few Green Shieldbugs around in the garden now, but this poor thing became lunch for the female spider...

But wait!

I cannot leave you with an arachnid photo, because I know how wimpish you are  about spiders and we don't want nightmares do we. Er...does anybody remember Swiss Toni?

Toni was a character from TVs 'The Fast Show' and everything in Toni's life was "A bit like making love to a beautiful woman". And so I thought I might purloin his phrase and create my own little meme...

And so here it is: my end of update moan. This is from 'finallygoodnews.net' and is actually a worthy story about the effect of pesticides on the bee population. But just look at the photograph they have chosen to use to illustrate the story! It's a Hoverfly for ***** sake. What is it with these people that they cannot even be bothered to research properly? Although, they should already know what a bee looks like surely?

It gets worse yet. The full size image within the story proudly proclaims underneath 'Honey Bee in Flight'. I thought about letting them know of their mistake, but somebody already had.