Rap jumping

It was another day of murky weather and horrible light, so I felt compelled to take a second trip around the hedgerows in search of ivy feeders. R has chosen, as his favourite of my keepers today, this photo of a female drone fly, Eristalis tenax. I like her apparently casual, head-down, vertical stance - but though I kid myself that I'd like to be able to do this too, in reality there's only one member of the family brave enough to have done face-down abseiling (otherwise known as the Australian rappel), and it wasn't me.

When I got home from my village walk, R told me that while he'd been sitting under a tree in the wild garden, keeping watch on a bonfire, he'd been visited - and indeed, sat on - by numerous invertebrates, including a shieldbug, several spiders, and a leafhopper. I was torn between being glad of the tip for future blipportunities, and extreme irritation that I'd beaten the bounds of the parish in search of bugs, when I could simply have sat in a heap at home and waited for them to come to me.

This evening we've been watching Sleeping Dog on Netflix, which is a twisty and intriguing German thriller series. Recommended.