Pellucid porn

It's not often that I laugh when I see something eminently photographable at the one moment in the entire day when I'm not carrying a camera, but this scene genuinely made me chuckle. I turned the laugh into a cough though, so as not to cause offence, and then tiptoed backwards out of the secret garden until I was out of their eye line, before turning and scuttling back to the kitchen for the macro.

Tiptoeing back in a wide arc around them, I eventually realised that I needn't have bothered with the secret squirrel performance - they were still in exactly the same position when I arrived within macro distance, and they stayed there, oblivious to me and my activities, for a good ten minutes afterwards. The surprising thing about this is that Volucella pellucens is quite a nervy and skittish hoverfly, and it doesn't generally take more than a twitch of the camera to put one to flight. Not though, clearly, when they're in the throes of passion. I'd never seen a pair in cop before, and if you'd told me that they adopt this position, I simply wouldn't have believed you; the utterly abandoned attitude of the female is, I think, especially charming.

Despite a buffeting wind and scudding clouds, the garden was busy with invertebrates throughout the day, and when I went through my images this evening I was more than happy with my 'bag'. I've put a small selection of favourites on my Facebook page, if you'd care to take a look.

For the record: I received a second Covid booster at my GP's surgery this morning. I'm very pleased and grateful, despite the fact that I currently feel worse than I did when I actually had Covid.