Late August shieldbug gallery

While spending some time in the garden pruning trees, deadheading and generally pottering around I have come across several species of shieldbug. The top shot shows a Corizus hyoscyami, a species which is expanding north in range in the UK. I found it on the seed heads of a purple toadflax and I briefly moved it indoors for a white background photographic session.

This large and colourful bug is a Hawthorn shieldbug, Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale, which was feeding on a meadow crane's bill.

I'm not sure how I spotted this cryptic Sloe or Hairy Shieldbug, Dolycoris baccarum on a buddleia seedhead.

This forest shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes, was crossing the path. 

Finally, a late instar nymph of a Green shieldbug, Palomena prasina, under a budleia leaf.

Click here for a great resource for the identification of British bugs (Hemiptera).

A shiny forest shieldbug

A close up of a recently emerged forest shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes, showing all its metallic shinyness.

Hawthorn shieldbug and garden spiders

 At this time of year it is hard not to notice Araneus diadematus, the garden spider. You walk through their orb webs when walking on paths with many hanging by each other by the dozens in front gardens. Most of the individuals you see on their webs now are females. Males have reached maturity and forgot about feeding: mating is the only thing in their mind, so they move across stealthily, in search of just mature fertile females. Many of the females are now just growing their eggs, fattening up, feeding on the many insects still flying in the mild september. The one above got a Hawthorn Shieldbug and rapidly rolled it up with silk, biting it repeatedly. The stink of the bug seems not to bother the spider. It was a dry afternoon, so the tiny dropplets visible on the silk threads on the bottom-left corner of the photo are probably the glue what makes the web sticky.
 I have been photographing garden spiders in the last few days. They are an easy subject. You can find the same individuals day after day in the same spot and you can get very close without disturbing them.

I tried a white background with this one, placing a white card behind the spider outside.

This is the largest spider around, in a very leafy front garden.

Wildlife garden bug safari

After my encounter this morning with the basking Nursery web spiders, I popped back to the wildlife garden after a storm had passed and there was some promise of a sunny spell. The spiders weren't out, but I found a few interesting invertebrates about, including two new species for the garden.

A Peacock, which together with a couple of large whites were the only butterflies about.

 The first nice surprise were a couple of Green Thistle Tortoise Beetles (Cassida rubiginosa), which I had never seen before, both of them on knapweed:

Then I found some Rophalus subrufus, including a couple mating.

A Green shieldbug came out on the leaves to bask.

And then I came across some nursery web spiders, one of them a male prowling...

...demonstrating how agile they are moving across leaves, hiding behind them quickly if I moved a bit too fast or too close.

...and a placid female sunning herself on the oregano of the herb garden.

 Just before leaving, another new species for me, a very pale grass spider, Tibellus oblongus, contrasting with the green leaves.