Spring plumage

Tired from the weekend, and with quite a backlog of domestic stuff to sort out, I only managed a short garden bug safari today, and took just a handful of photos. That's to say, a hundred or so, which in the context of macro work on a breezy site counts as hardly any at all. Most were only good enough to be used for recording purposes, but I do like this one of a Green Shieldbug on the ivy that covers our old farm wall.

Because they're not really sexually dimorphic, I can only confidently tell the difference between male and female shieldbugs when I see a pair of them together - the females being larger, and often more assertive, than the males. As this one was on its own I'm not certain of its sex, but if I had to plump, I'd say that it's probably a female. Either way, the interesting thing about it (to me, at least) is that it's morphing from the drab camouflage colour it will have adopted during the winter into its breeding colours: bright green, with red antennae and tarsi, and a red edging to the connexivum (which is the pie-crust edging around the abdomen) and the pronotum. At the moment this red edging is no more than a hint at the distal corners of the connexivum, but over the next few weeks it will spread and intensify, and by the time our bug is ready to breed, she'll probably look like one of this pair. The fact that they even paint their naughty bits red strikes me as egregiously attention-seeking, but I guess it pays to advertise.