Minibeasts

When I was primary school teaching one of the things my class and I looked forward to was a day out of the classroom exploring the local countryside to see what insects and other small creatures were about. Then would come the task of identification and finding out about their life cycle and habitat.That was in the days before the National Curriculum when the teacher was able to decide what the children would learn, chose the best times to go about it and allotted the time needed accordingly.

Not too many minibeasts spotted here at the moment. At last I did find one Speckled Wood Butterfly taking a rest from flitting all over the place though it steadfastly refused to open its wings fully.



I am not sure whether this was a small beetle or a small fly which spent a couple of hours on the outside of the kitchen window. It made a change to get a blue sky as a background!



A Hoverfly taking a rare rest.



Here a Common Green Shield Bug which spent about six hours in the same position on the outside of the kitchen window. The only time it moved was to angle itself to catch the Sun when it eventually lit up that part of the window,



It wasn't until I enlarged the photos that I noticed that this little bug was missing two of its six legs.



All the above were taken with the Lumix TZ7. There are still scores of seven spot ladybirds about. The tadpoles in the nursery pond are coming along nicely.