A staghorn sunac growing in a front garden. The freshly opened flowers beginning to change from their initial green to the deep, dark red which they will become.
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Staghorn sumac, still green
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Diet of … beetles
A patch of bird dropping on a buddleia leaf. A closer look reveals that the bird which left it, perhaps a blackbird, had eaten a hearty meal of beetles. Pieces of exoskeleton had just passed straight through.
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Red runners
Bright red flowers on runner beans, holding the prospect of some nice fresh veg later in the summer.
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Common nettle tap moth on hazel leaf
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.
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Thistle (bonus beetle)
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.