David

Bright red flowers on runner beans, holding the prospect of some nice fresh veg later in the summer.

Common Nettle-Tap (Anthophila fabriciana). It’s resting on a hazel leaf here, but there was a nettle patch only a couple of feet away.

Thistle, with one of the flowers shown fully open, and another yet to open.

The open flower had attracted a couple of tiny beetles. These were common pollen beetles (Brassicogethes aeneus), which show more clearly in the heavily-cropped version of the picture.

Yarrow flowers seem to be particularly attractive to common red soldier beetles this year. This one was busy grazing, walking across the flower while feeding.

A roadside sow thistle as some of the flowers had begun to turn to seed.

Snail, possibly a Pfeiffer’s amber-snail (Oxyloma elegans) slowly, slooowly crawling higher along one of the bulrush leaves in Compton Park pond.