Thursday 23 February 2012

More awakenings

 The early spring temperatures continued today. Ants were scouting out of their nests, sage leafhoppers were active and honeybees and droneflies enjoyed the Laurustinus. I waited until the bee and the dronefly visited the same inflorescence to take the above shot. I wonder if the Laurustinus flowers change colour when they are pollinated, in the same way as the Horse Chestnuts, white when fresh and turning red when already pollinated and stop producing nectar. 

We counted over 100 7-spot ladybirds in the garden. Some were eating aphids on the spurge.
The entrance of the burrow of a large Amaurobius spider under a garage roof. If you click to embiggen you can see the remains of a wasp a Harlequin and some wings I cannot identify, possibly from bluebottles.

A green shieldbug, Palomena prasina, on its dark winter attire came out of its overwintering refuge.
 Wolf spiders enjoyed the sun on the sunny side of the garden.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, we prepare an atlas of Czech spiders, the introduction will contain several chapters about spider natural history. Therefore we look for some illustrations. I found your nice photo of Amaurobius web. Could we use it in the atlas? Of course, you would be stated as the author of the photo. In case you would agree, can you send me the highest resolution photo?
Thanks in advance for consideration! Please, answer to my email rezac@vurv.cz.
Cheers, Milan Rezac