One of my favourite spiders: Pisaura mirabilis. With her huge egg sac.

It’s mad that two so closely related insects should produce so wildly different shaped galls on the same plant. Pea gall of Diplolepis eglanteriae and bedeguar of D. rosae.

It’s always a challenge to identify a bit of a beetle. Ablattaria laevigata.

Trachyzelotes pedestris? Under brick Leyton brownfield site today.

Spiky! Deraeocoris ruber (Hemiptera: Miridae) nymph.

Woodpecker? damage to bee hotel.

Just been sent this great picture by a local friend who first thought it was a piece of Lego lying on the pavement. Mating lime hawks, Mimas tiliae. Plenty of limes (lindens) planted as street trees hereabouts. Sometimes I’m sent photos of the caterpillars.

Technically a ‘snail-killing fly’ family Sciomyzidae but still one of my favourite ‘picture-wings’. Trypetoptera punctulata. Maidstone today.

Agapanthia cardui, spreading west since its UK discovery at Folkestone in 2017. Lots north of Maidstone today.

First small tort of the year. Fresh. Beautiful.

Rivellia syngenesiae is a pretty and distinctive picture wing fly. Not rare but I don’t see it often. Tower of London today.

Flying around in the garden earlier — Mononychus punctumalbum. Usually on yellow flag iris. Uncommon. But spreading? None of that foodplant in our small pond but we have a good selection of garden irises. I shall be keeping a close eye on the developing fruits later this year.

You’ll just have to take my word that I saw a humming-bird hawkmoth in the garden. A photo? Hah! Even the cat couldn’t get close.

Another living jewel. Actually a jewel beetle this time. Agrilus cuprescens on our garden currant bushes.

Green jewel in the garden. Rose chafer, Cetonia aurata. Not rare, but I’ve not seen one in this area before.

A reminder: only monarch’s head ‘definitive’ stamps must have a barcode to be valid these days. Special issue pictorial stamps can still be used even though they don’t have barcodes. This is illustrated by the fact that today I received a letter with 44-year-old stamps on it.

Notre Dame looking wonderful; the ancient doors are really spectacular. The door jambs represent signs of the zodiac, starting bottom left with Aquarius. But Leo and Cancer (lobster) are transposed. And that is the worst Scorpio in the history of ecclesiastical stone masonry.

Part of the ceiling of the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, assigned to Girolamo da Santacroce, 17th c. painted in grisaille camaieu on a blue background but with 19th c. Viennese framing. The subjects are inspired by astrology (planets), mythology (birth of Adonis) and ancient figures (philosophers, emperors). I’d just add that elephants used to be a lot better laundered and pressed then than they are nowadays.

Uccello’s c1465 George and the dragon. The neatness of the mid-15th century florentine agriculture grips my attention. He needed to show this because he was apparently obsessed with perspective and the then novel concept of the vanishing point. Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.