Marmalade

What to post, what to post...? After a couple of days of feeling as though I'd forgotten how to use the camera, today I've had almost too good a day, and even after much culling I still have more than a dozen shots that I really like.

It was positively autumnal this morning, but this afternoon, just as I decided that I was going to have to go out looking for photos anyway, it suddenly warmed up and the sun came out - and lots of lovely bugs promptly came out too. So I have some bees, a butterfly, three different hoverflies (one new to me), three species of ladybird, some dock shield bugs in flagrante... oh, and a spider with wickedly beady eyes.

In the end I couldn't resist this marmalade fly, Episyrphus balteatus, because he's so lovely and fresh, and I love the way the white Cerastium that covers the top of my garden wall sets off his handsome colouring. The only problem with posting him is that it stops me from featuring the dramatic complementary colours of the thick-legged flower beetle, Oedemera nobilis, sitting on a dandelion....

Oh no - I'm wavering again....!

No - as you were: the hoverfly is elegant, and I don't often do elegant. Please accept the hoverfly, with my compliments - with the flower beetle for dessert. If you have the time to look at them both full-screen, I'd be charmed.

Which reminds me - I was both charmed and amused by the responses I received to yesterday's blip. Thank you for your generosity towards my mid-life crisis!