Saturnine

It was pretty much all beetles and bugs in the garden this afternoon - which is fine, but given that it was a mild, though overcast, afternoon, I was surprised to find so little else. First out of the blocks was this rather sombre final instar Green Shieldbug nymph, which I spotted one one of the honeysuckles almost as soon as I walked out of the house. This lulled me into a false sense of security, and an assumption that I was about to have an easy safari, but everything else I photographed was much harder to find, and most had to be beaten from trees and shrubs. 

If you check out the British Bugs page for the Green Shieldbug you'll see that the nymphs are quite variable, but most of the ones I find here are a fairly bland mid-green, with partly red antennae. I don't remember ever seeing another that was as dramatically marked as this, and from the moment I took this shot it was always odds-on to be my blip tonight. For the next hour and a half I strove to find something that I thought was more interesting, but though a few things ran it close the Green Shieldbug came home the winner.

While clearing out files and folders from the Mac this morning I realised that I had a set of Trench Wood photos, destined for my Facebook page, that I'd somehow forgotten to post. I've now remedied this, and they're here if you'd like to see them. This is the post that describes my walk.