Bishop's Mitre

My afternoon was spent at Ring Haw NR recording vegetation quadrats in very short turf that involved a lot of crawling round on my hands and knees. Despite being a Bank Holiday, the reserve was almost deserted, probably because of the overcast sky and cool northerly wind - at one point I wished I'd packed a jacket - in August!

Needless to say, there wasn't a lot to photograph. As I plonked myself down next to the last quadrat I spotted this Bishop's Mitre bug climbing up a grass stem which was waving wildly in the breeze. I was struck by how well camouflaged it was, and took a few shots, not really expecting any to be in focus. This one's passable and does convey something of the rather muted, end-of-summer feel of the day.

Back in the 1980's, when I was starting out in my career, this species was very local, and generally confined to southern sand dunes. With climate change, it's spread enormously and is now considered to be widespread and common across southern Britain in a range of tall and rank dry grassland habitats.