Bank Holiday Weekend Bugs

Too hot for striding out in the open so Ollie dog and I stayed at home. We spent quite a bit of time in the shade of the southerly boiler house at the end of Butterfly Alley. I have a chair there and just sat and waited for something interesting to appear. This female common darter dragonfly returned repeatedly, as is their wont, to a blackthorn twig. I took lots of shots and have chosen this one as it shows her cocking her head at me. They seem to interact with humans. 

I saw the female spider catch and start to wrap a ladybird. A male spider approached and tweaked her web hesitantly. She left the ladybird and went to meet him. In the end she decided that she preferred a ladybird meal to his charms.

A hopeful male butterfly did an aerial dance with a female but when he tried to mate with her she rebuffed him with an upturned abdomen. She had probably already mated and this behaviour prevents the pair of them wasting their time.

Plenty of willow emerald damselflies about but I've yet to see and photograph them mating.

Another pink tinged grasshopper.