Wolves Wild

Zebra jumping spider orunning up some outdoor woodwork. Pictures taken on a mobile phone in low light.

Young frog which has got into the habit of resting on the rim of a bird bath in warm weather, It hasn’t been seen actually in the water.

Flowers of a garden poppy, the petals looking very papery.

Seed case from the same plant, already beginning to ripen.

The first mushrooms I noticed once the rains finally came to break this year’s long dry spring. They are boletes, but I don’t know which species.

One of the West Park magpies, on what seemed to be a thankless task, looking for something to eat on a patch of dry ground.

Harlequin ladybird larvae (juvenile stage) and pupae (undeergoing metamorphosis).

Harlequins originate in the far east of Asia. They were deliberately introduced into America to control aphids. Instead they rapidly became worse pests themselves.

They were also brought to Europe, including Britain, by human activity, not deliberately this time.

First recorded in Britain in 2005. When I first started this blog, in 2009, one of the conservation bodies had a system in place to report all sightings of these beetles, to aid efforts to control them.

It didn’t work. In my haphazard sightings this year, harlequins have outnumbered all native ladybirds several times over.