A Frog and a Froghopper

The Summer display in my hanging baskets was well and truly over. The Fuchsias came to nothing. They stayed still at about 3 inches high. Fortunately the trailing Lobelia put on a really nice display. Though watered every dry day even they eventually gave up the ghost.

I emptied and relined the baskets then filled them with new compost ready, I hope, for a Winter and Spring display. Round the perimeter are trailing Winter flowering Pansies. Taking up the centre portion are bulbs; Hyacinth, Dwarf Iris (all those are blue) and Puschkinia libanotica (Russian Snowdrops) which have white petals with a blue stripe. I've not grown those before so we will see how they get on.

As for the garden wildlife. A couple of days ago I spotted a young frog on the path



This one was a bit larger than others seen recently so may be a two year old.

While I was troweling compost from the bag to a hanging basket what should decide to leap in to have a close look at what was going on? A common Froghopper (Philaenus spumarius)


 

Weird looking creatures.

Finally a butterfly landed in the garden.
A Small Tortoiseshell

 

A bit of a rare event here this Summer.

When is a Hopping Frog not a Hopping Frog?

When it's a Frog Hopper:



Remember that frothy Cuckoo Spit (also called frog or snake spit) on my Pinks? This is the creature which emerges when the nymphs hidden in the froth mature. Length about 6mm.

It was half way up the door frame of my conservatory and stayed long enough for one shot before it just vanished from view - hopped away! They are capable of leaping many times their height and length. Some can leap up to 70cm vertically and accellerate at 4,000 m/s2 over 2mm as they jump. Some can jump 100 times their length. All in all well named as Frog Hoppers.  Information from Wikipedia.

Photograph, cropped, taken with my Nikon Coolpix S9050
Picture produced using the Mac app PicCollage Lite.