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and was rewarded with the sight of Ledra aurita, a large and curiously shaped plant-hopper I'd never seen before. When I say large, I mean 15-18 mm long, so you can imagine how small most of the others are. It is immediately identified by the two large, broad, flat

At 11 o'clock in the morning, the bowl of Bob-the-Builder pasta shapes was either a late second breakfast, or an early first lunch - whatever, it was interrupted by the announcement from nearly-three-year-old: "Look, there's a magpie". Sure enough

in daylight until nearly 10pm, I now find that it is dark outside whilst I sit at the laptop and do a bit of writing. Now, as I sit with the French windows wide open, it really is very dark out there, but every now and then I catch a glimpse of a pale shape

, and could not make out the distinctive shape of this pretty bird. Of course they are renowned for playing hide-and-seek with observers, hopping round to the other side of the trunk if they see they are being watched. Some years ago I was able to see one very

in Britain. Although there are about 250 species of hoverfly in the UK, and roughly 100 of them are black and yellow wasp mimics, this one is immediately recognizable by its narrow parallel-sided body shape and the fact that some abdominal segments have two

of leaf mines. I'm not an expert on mines, but it just didn't look right. I think I must never have seen these delicate angular leaves attacked so.My first thought was that the mines had exactly the same shape and form as those scarring the horse chestnuts

, and these too, contorted to grip each other, forming first a tight knot, then expanding into a broad round flower shape. This is the point at which each exudes sperm into the other. Slugs are hermaphrodites, their bodies containing both male and female organs

the bird’s exact shape and size. Occasionally it comes out onto the bark to fidget about, but most of the time it stays indoors and keeps bobbing its head in and out of the hole. What on Earth is it up to?I can only imagine that it is picking up bits

, stilt-like legs and stiff T-shaped stance. I think it’s most likely the common bindweed plume, Emmelina monodactyla. I’ve got the tiny caterpillars chewing the bindweed leaves in my garden.There are about 40 UK plume-moth species, but as my colleague

, it doesn’t have long legs, it doesn’t scuttle, it doesn’t lurk, and it doesn’t come out at night to creep across the living room carpet.Instead, it is bright and breezy, it has short shapely legs, it hops, jumps and skips, it struts carefully across a fence