What a strange, but interesting, day I had in the garden today. I saw a few things that I'd never seen before. I saw one thing that I'd probably be happy never to see again, at least not under a magnifying glass. This day may have been a bit gruesome in places, but it was also a very colourful day indeed.
This is, by far, my favourite UK spider - a zebra spider. It's a small jumping spider with exceptional eyesight.
Salticus scenicus
Salticus scenicus
And this is another spider being predated by a solitary wasp. It wasn't the most pleasant thing I've ever seen before my own breakfast, but it was fascinating. How the wasp managed to fly with the weight of the spider in its mandibles, I don't know.
This very colourful insect is a ruby-tailed wasp. It's sometimes thought of as 'the kingfisher of the insect world', and it's not hard to see why. This particular one was less than 1cm long but, nonetheless, because of it's striking colour it was easy to spot. As far as I know, this tiny wasp feeds on nectar, so spiders need not fear. However, it's sometimes called 'the cuckoo wasp' because it lays its eggs in the nests of solitary wasps and bees. We seem to have a lot of mason and mining bees in the garden, and solitary wasps, so it's no wonder that we also have the ruby-tailed wasp out there as well. I will try and get some much better pictures of it but I was itching to show you the pretty colours!
Ruby-tailed wasp
And whilst we're on the subject of unusually bright colour - check out this fly's eyes. Again, it was a tiny fly, but I couldn't help but notice the ummissable eyes. They seemed to follow me around the garden, and they genuinely were that colour. In fact, they probably still are that colour, unless the fly has since been eaten by something, obviously!
And this fly is either praying that it doesn't get eaten anytime soon, or applauding the sheer oddness of it all!
It's never dull in the garden, especially when the sun shines!
Until next time,
Claude
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