Things are heating up

The weather isn't as warm as it might be at this time of year (thank goodness) and theres a pleasant scattering of showers keeping things green.
And here come the bugs!

We have our first Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the parsley. There will be many many more come July and we won't have any parsley, dill or fennel left. But this is the first of the year and when I took this it had just had its second moult. Its going to get a whole lot greener. Watch this space.

From the baby Swallowtail to the baby grashopper. I can't put a species to this, its just too small yet, it's about 4mm in length. I'm more impressed by the grasshoppers and katydids every year. There is so much variety of size and colour that they are rapidly becoming my second favourite group after the dragonflies and damselflies.

Like the Familiar Bluet

And the Fragile Forktail. Its often hard to tell the difference between all of these blue damsels. The Fragile at least has those broken 'shoulder' stripes, the ! is very distinctive.

And last for tonight,

An assassin bug, Zelus Luridus. This is the adult, that I really don't see that often  I see the nymphs more frequently, usually on the screens with the back end of the abdomen curled up and over. They look a lot like a little mantis.