Tiny garden residents

I spent much of the day making practical preparations for the forthcoming three days of commuting to Leeds - washing clothes and buying and preparing food for packed lunches and easy evening meals. Usually Pete can take over when I'm away, but this year he and Chris were going to be field-working on two of the days, so I had to plan ahead.

Photography was limited to a garden safari. I was very impressed by the vibrant colour of this plant bug, Rhopalus subrufus, which was sitting on one of our meadow crane's-bill plants. Widely distributed in southern Britain, this species is often found on low vegetation in scrubby areas and woodland clearings. It is associated with many plants, particularly St John's-wort, and overwinters as an adult, the new generation appearing in August.

I also found an immature jumping spider sitting on one of our garden lights, looking somewhat out of place on the brushed steel background. This is Evarcha falcata,  which is is widespread in the southern half of Britain, but becomes very scattered in the north of England and Scotland. It's a woodland spider which normally occurs in the foliage of trees and on lower vegetation such as heather and gorse in woodland clearings. It seems to have lost its way!