Double Bug

Two scenes of, er, bug intimacy this week.

The first is a pair of clegs (horse flies), Tabanidae. I have an admiration-hate relationship with clegs. Admiration for their extraordinary efficiency and accuracy - they can attack a horse's legs - or mine - fast and from a distance, but land with such precision that you feel nothing until the wee bu&&er has bitten a chunk out of you, at which they fly off, again at high speed but this time in a dodging, zigzag flight path that makes them impossible to swat. Hate, because they are a constant summer nuisance for the donkeys.

But the admiration part of the equation increased with this pair who managed to couple on an orange-tree leaf, and then fly off, still coupled in perfect coordination, when my camera got too close.

This is giving me a buzz

Clegs fight the stereotype; it is she that bites the donkeys, while he floats around our garden flowers eating only nectar.


And then there were these two. They were locked in a love scene at the entrance to a mouse burrow, like two sumo wrestlers. These two barely moved when I approached, and were clearly not going anywhere for anyone. 

It's boring but it works

Sticky End

I saw one in the woods a week ago, but there was not enough light to photograph it. This one, however, was easier to picture because - poor wee thing - it had drowned in a cupful of water in the water-feeders for the donkey stable.


Knifed in the back



This is possibly Leptynia hispanica, but it might be Pijnackeria hispanica, in which case I can make a Scottish connection because the latter feeds exclusively on, er, Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius)...