Butterflies And Gall Wasps

Some miscellaneous spots from the last week:

This is the gall of the Bedeguar Gall Wasp, which lays it's eggs in a branch of dog rose (Rosa canine, a native wild rose) and in what Wikipedia describes as 'a way not yet understood', causes the gall pictured here to develop.  Joking aside, the page is quite in depth and interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplolepis_rosae

Meanwhile, I spotted this rather tatty looking Red Admiral feasting on some red valerian in my parent's garden, which was decent enough to stay still long enough to allow me to get my camera out and focused.

TRIGGER WARNING (contains pictures of spiders)

Now I know some people that read this don't like spiders. My apologies, but these are particularly pretty and slightly exotic spiders, namely the wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi) which, as the name hints, is a recent visitor to these shores from the mediterreanian. 

These were all photographed at Bradbury Rings (iron age hill fort, managed by the National Trust as mentioned in the previous couple of posts). Paul, the ranger there, had fairly raved about the wasp spiders there and Elise, who I was busy ragwort pulling with, spotted one. I then spent a very long time kneeling in brambles, trying to persuade my ageing iPhone to focus on a spider's web and eventually got a pic that was in focus.

Here it is:

We spotted a few more of it's (actually her's, as the stripy ones are female) friends and relations around and about, in the 'rings' part of the hill fort, where it is relatively sheltered. By the end of the day it was getting a bit 'meh, there's another one'.

Anyway, I love the name 'wasp spider' - partly a name designed to breed nightmares, partly one of those "What does it look like? Uuuuuh... kinda waspy. Ok, wasp spider, that'll do" sort of species names.

More on wasp spiders: https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs-and-habitats/wasp-spider

http://srs.britishspiders.org.uk/portal.php/p/Summary/s/Argiope+bruennichi

http://www.janvanduinen.nl/argiopebruennichi-engels.php

'Spiders' by System Of A Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqZNMvIEHhs

Bob The Spider

Sorry for not updating in a while but it's getting to the end of term and I've got assignments to write.

In the meantime, here's a picture of Bob, our new lodger, who is paying his rent by sitting by the back door and catching any flies that venture in. He (probably a she, actually) is a garden spider, Araneus diadematus.