I spent a few hours on several days during July walking around my local nature reserve, primarily to try and prove breeding for certain species before the BTO Bird Atlas finishes at the end of this month. While there I took photos of anything else that caught my eye. This first post will be about bugs! Below is the female Oedemera nobilis (the males have obvious swollen hinds legs).
We have some Ragwort on the reserve, the flowers of which have been strimmed off as we're adjacent to some farmland with cows grazing and Ragwort is poisonous to livestock. Ragwort is the food plant for the striking Cinnabar Moth caterpillar.
This deadly looking beastie is an Ichneuman fly (a parasitic fly). I can't give a definite ID as there are many many of these! 
Below is a Meadow Grasshopper which is a widespread species throughout much of Great Britain.
I've not had a chance this year to photograph many Damselflies, so this Blue-tailed male was a welcome find.
This lovely golden Bumblebee is Bombus lucorum.
This white Crab spider isn't on the best flower for camouflage!
This Leafhopper is tiny (about 3mm long). They proved to be very camera shy, but I persevered as I wanted to try and capture those stunning colours!
Here's a lovely iridescent Mint beetle, not surprisingly on some Water mint! 
I'd been told by Bryan Pinchen, the entomologist doing yearly surveys on our Reserve that he had seen Roesel's Bush Cricket on his last visit. So, as I'd never seen one before, I went down to try and get some photos. With some patience I managed to get a couple of shots. 
Sometimes it's best to just sit for a while and see what comes into view. I spent an amusing 5 minutes watching and photographing this Soldier beetle (Rhagonycha fulva) as it tried to get on top of this flower, it's antennae waving madly about. It just goes to show that there are no colour clashes in nature!
There'll be more from Rodden Reserve shortly.
