I hope many of you had a bash at the Garden Bioblitz the weekend before last. The simple idea was just to see what wildlife you could find in your garden, even if you didn't know what it was, and then submit your sightings online.
I was working that weekend, but fitted in a couple of half hour sessions, and it was fascinating. Too often I'm just 'too busy' in the garden to really take notice of what is going on, but now I forced myself to follow every movement, the see if I could get closer to every insect that buzzed by, or turn over every leaf.
I'd seen this hoverfly over the pond regularly, and admired its tiger-striped back, but never stopped to find out what it is:
It turns out to be Helophilus pendulus. As my hoverfly book says, "Common and very widespread...Adults may occur around the shallow margins of ponds."
Or how about this little hoverfly, which I never saw settled but which I manged to photograph in flight in my 'woodland garden':
With his little yellow 'rucksack', I thought he's got to be identifiable. It turns out he's called Sphaerophoria. I won't remember the Latin name for longer than a minute, but it's nice to put a name to him and find out why he is in my garden. There are several species that look very similar, but these are insects of dry grassland and woodland rides. The larvae are aphid eaters.
And then I found this:
Yes, a ladybird, but a small one, with a polka-dot head and ten spots on its back. Ah, at last, a name I can remember! - the 10-spot Ladybird. This is a woodland species, so I was thrilled that he/she had decided to visit my woodland garden. And another aphid eater too - I've got a little army out there it seems doing my pest control for me.
And all of it a reminder that we're surrounded by such wonderful diversity...and so much of it just beyond our back door.