In The Hidden Depths

I wasn’t going to mention or blip bush-crickets today. Honest I wasn’t. But somehow they creep in when least expected, in the hidden depths of things.
The flower beds needed tidying up. Weeding, dead-heading, pulling up plants that had already gone to seed to make way for others just coming into flower. The pot marigolds – calendula, which spring up every year from slefsown seed, were past their best. Rather than pull them up though I cut them to within a couple of inches of the ground and with any luck it would send up new flowering shoots for late summer flowering. Several of the heads had already spread their seed and many were nearly ready their seeds brown and crunchy. Others were still ripening showing a hint of green and orange and of the flower they had once been.
I took some of the seed heads in and set up the macro lens. I couldn’t quite get what I wanted with the ripe seed heads so I set up one of the other ones which was still showing the centre of the flower. On checking the first shot in close I thought that there was a green fly in the centre. Looking closer I really couldn’t believe my eyes. There seemed to be long feelers, a long bent leg… I realised with amazement it must be the cast off skin of one of the bush crickets when it was still a tiny nymph, less than the size of a pinhead, 2 mm at most. I thought I would like to get in a little closer so attached the close-up filter and I’m quite pleased with the result. The fact the skin has survived these many weeks is pretty amazing