Voyeurism

I was wandering up the garden this morning, just looking to see what was about, and a strange movement caught my eye as a bright and strange-shaped bug disappeared into the depths of a Potentilla. When pursued with the macro this turned out to be two Helophilus pendulus hoverflies in flagrante.

The situation was tricky because they were right in the cluttered heart of the shrub, so inserting the camera alongside them wasn't easy, and getting it into a reasonable plane for a close-up was harder yet. Shortly after I took the second of the two shots I've stacked to create this image, the male demonstrated his disapproval of my voyeurism by removing the pair of them - and by the time I'd extracted self and camera from the Potentilla they were nowhere to be found.

If you have the time, this does look much better full-screen.

This afternoon one of our vets came out to the house with a veterinary nurse to give Arthur a thorough check-up, because he has been having difficulty in pooing for the past couple of days, and given his age I feared that something rather nasty might be going on. However, the good news is that after a lengthy examination, of which I'll spare you the gorier details, Chris is pretty confident that the issue is arthritis rather than bowel obstruction. And I was greatly cheered by the ferocious energy with which Arthur fought against having an internal exam done: there is, it seems, life in the old chap yet.