Insects and Spiders

Not sure abut more learned, but yes it's a Roesel's Bush Cricket. More nice photos on Steven Falk's great Flickr account (a goldmine of great insect photos) https://www.flickr.com/photos/63075200@N07/albums/72157631754944234/

Seen yesterday along the Ruislip Pinn:

Elephant Hawk moth caterpillar.
Apparently they do eat Himalayan Balsam!

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I don't know what this is but it was a very good sitter.

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Nice photos - that one is a male Speckled Bush-cricket.

You can read all about it here

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344787248_The_Speckled_Bush-cricket_-an_unusual_orthopteran

From the abstract "We have been working on various aspects of the ecology, behaviour and acoustics of the Speckled Bush-cricket for several decades and reckon we have seen over 500 matings, both in the lab and in the field"!

Great photo

Gorgeous.

This furry fella heading to the park.

Apparently a White ermine moth caterpillar.

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That dude was definitely watching you

I think so ...

At first you may think this creature has two single lens eyes like we have, but this picture shows the eyes to be complex multi-lensed eyes.

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Thanks for the link.
I also read that the Speckled Bush-cricket can be found 'perched motionless' which probably accounts for the ease I had capturing it on my phone.

Sat on the decking at my aunts house, watching the buddlea (sp?) which is a-swarm with butterflies. Lovely!
So far I’ve seen a load of tortoiseshells, lots of a white thing I don’t know the name of, some painted ladies, a couple of red admirals and I just saw a peacock.

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I just saw a peacock

Bird thread ==>

I just saw a peacock

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Yeah its cool! if it's anything like my little flappy fellas, the dark "pupil" is actually actually melanised pigment that migrates up and down the ommatidia in response to light conditions.

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Some hoverflies have hairy eyeballs (Eristalis tenax)

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Currently guarding the shed door

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This beast was in our downstairs loo this morning.

I saw this spider this morning, it is just outside of our living room window and had spun a web in a rose bush. It caught my eye later because a bee had flown into the web and the spider was frantically wrapping it up! By the time I got out with a camera he was settling down for a meal.

Just below is another spider and a leaf blew into its web, it went to investigate, decided it wasn't tasty and cut it free from the web!

Great photo.

Migrant Hawker, commin' over here taking all our small insects ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kkOHtniTts

Common Blue

I found this on the driveway a few minutes ago... Any idea what it is?

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^ Something along these lines?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jsepFAxbC1Yx8RTb8