Horehound orange & black shield bug

After a rare treat of breakfast out this morning, we headed for the Adelaide Hills and todays Open Garden. This current "season of gardens" has covered spring, summer and now we are moving into our autumn gardens.

Today it was the Tupelo Grove Open garden at Mylor at the back of Stirling. 30 years ago I lived at Stirling and it is the most English part of South Australia when it comes to beautiful English style gardens.

Tupelo Grove is both a private garden and a working nursery specialising in salvias and other water-wise plants. It is also a place we love to visit each year.

Paladian concentrated on the bees, looked for birds as well as other insect life, while I concentrated on the landscapes and various closeups of the different parts of the nursery, dam and garden.

I spotted this bright orange bug on one of the flowers and felt it looked like a shield bug. I have blipped a green shield bug before, but never seen an orange one. Wrestling the camera away from the bee-hunting Paladian (so what's new), I got a few shots of this bright and colourful fellow.

Spottier!

On the way home we visited a quarry I had spotted near the garden to take a few more interesting shots. However, on viewing all of the photos of the day, the shield bug won out.
See my blipfolio where I have added 4 photos from Tupelo Grove to Misc. and then click right.