We've noticed that our monolith resembles a sleeping elephant from some angles. Here's what we mean (I've added the eye).

Our hop is having another good year after the really bad year it had last year (it was badly infested with black fly). It has decided to flower for only the second time in nine years.

As the afternoon was drawing to a close, this female beautiful demoiselle, Calopteryx virgo, flew across my path. Luckily I had my camera with me.

There were four fledgling swallows in our birch today. It seems that this is a good staging post for learning to fly, hunt and drink at the pond.

It's really unusual to see a pine marten in the middle of the afternoon. This individual is looking quite ill and seems to have some sort of skin problem or he might have been caught up in a car engine - is that oil on his head?

Looking a bit healthier, this goldfinch was amongst a group of 6 who are enjoying our thistle garden at the moment.

We had a some of our willows thinned out at the end of last year. I was concerned that that might mean the end of our purple emperor butterflies. Well today we had one so it seems no harm has been done.

Lastly, a new beetle species for the garden (although we knew they were there as our snowball tree takes a hammering every year from the larvae). This is the Viburnum leaf beetle, Pyrrhalta viburni on our snowball tree!

It continues to be quite quiet in the garden from an insect perspective. There are a lot of butterflies, hoverflies and other common insects about, but there really hasn't been anything interesting happening.

On the bird side though, things are picking up again after the summer break. These two swallows were sitting in our birch for most of the afternoon, being fed by a parent.

I've been neglecting the birds recently, but there is a lull in the insect activity at the moment so here are a couple of photos of a male red-backed shrike that was in the garden all day today.

After much searching, I finally found a wasp spider in the garden. This is a male, so isn't as impressive as the female, but the zigzag web is clear. This is a couple of metres away from where I found the egg sac at the end of last year - which suggests that there are a lot of these spread about all over the garden.

I really didn't think I'd have anything for the diary today. I took a few snaps but I didn't think there was anything interesting enough. However, I did record two new beetle species and I found the grey dagger caterpillar from Thursday - this time with its emerged parasitoid as I predicted. The Byrrhus pilula was in one of our beetle basements which is satisfying.

The day started well with this garden tiger caterpillar searching for a pupation site. Well he found a good one: in my puparium!

This pair of Dead-nettle leaf beetles were mating on hemp dead-nettle, so their name seems appropriate.

Our old maple stump is a good source of insects as it is still producing a lot of moisture. This fantastic (and reasonably rare) rove beetle, Ontholestes haroldi, was drinking there today.

Just as I was thinking there weren't any green mountain grasshoppers about this year, two turn up - one of which was sitting in a hawthorn beside our driveway.

And finally, some rather revolting slime mould. This one is Mucilago crustacea. The English common name is confusingly Dog's sick slime mould, but there's another species, Fuligo septica, which is called Dog's vomit slime mould.

I finally got a photo of our third and most common horse fly called, appropriately enough, the common horse fly in English. I've not managed to get a photo of this species before as they're usually biting when we see them. It's deceptively beautiful with its mesmorizing eyes and patterned wings, but we know from experience, they are horrible creatures. This one was sitting on our house wall waiting to pounce. She got swatted as soon as I finished taking photos.

I took a few more photos of the Mangora acalypha spider from different angles.

While taking the additional spider photos, I found another new beetle species, Stenurella melanura.

Up in our upper garden, this grey dagger caterpillar was sitting prominently on a bird cherry leaf. I didn't collect it as it is usually the case that they are parasitized if they're in the open like that.

Earlier this week, we went out for a run a spotted an unusual bedstraw that we'd seen a couple of years ago. Back then, we thought it might be licorice bedstraw, but that is an American species so it wasn't really possible. With a bit more research, we've now identified this as Round-leaved bedstraw, Galium rotundifolia. Today we cycled up to get some photos of this species in its natural habitat. It's a fairly understated plant and it only flowers for a few days a year so it is probably more common than it appears. But, for now, we've only seen a very local patch of this in one place in Christophstal.

We also recorded Alsike Clover in our garden back in 2016 but we've not seen it since. For the past couple of weeks I've seen a strange clover at the end of the garden and today we confirmed that it was Alsike Clover.

The weather forecast for today was heavy rain all day. However, it didn't actually rain during the day so we managed a few circuits of the garden and did a bit of planting/replanting. We had to be particularly careful where we were treading as there are quite a few very small froglets around the garden. Once again, Christine's finger provides some scale - she has treated herself to a manicure after seeing the photo from earlier in the week.

There are a few new beetle species and a new hoverfly, Eristalis tenax. There was a new species of bug too, Polymerus unifasciatus which I spotted on its host foodplant, heath bedstraw. I spotted a similar looking species on a nearby scabious, but this is actually Adelphocoris seticornis.

I thought I'd seen a small wasp spider down near the patch where I found an egg sac last year (that egg sac disappeared completely in late autumn - I've no idea how). This is actually Mangora acalypha  - a new species for the garden.

Endlich schönes Wetter.

Wir hatten am Teich am frühen Vormittag einen seltenen Gast, ein Kormoran. Zur Zeit ist es ziemlich gut für Schmetterling. Hier ist ein Schachbrett.

Ich habe einige schöne Fotos von dieser Großen Wollbiene, Anthidium manicatum gekriegt, eine neue Art für den Garten. 

Und kurz nach dem Mittagessen wurden wir von dieser enormen Ichneumon Wespe besucht, Dolchomitus imperitor, eine weitere Art für den Garten. Im ersten Foto zeigt Christines Finger die Größe dieses riesigen Individuums. 

Im oberen Teil vom Garten sah ich diese Waldameisen die Schwarze Blattläuse 'züchten'.

Und zum Schluß heute eine neue Käferbeobachtung, Rhagonycha fulva, auch im oberen Garten.

Es flogen heute viele Schmetterlinge herum, darunter dieser Gemeine Scheckenfalter. Ich wurde auch mit einer neuen Mottenart für den Garten belohnt, Anania verbascalis.

Während einer meiner Tours im Garten sah ich diesen Harlekin-Marienkäfer und einen Käfer Agrypnus murinus in irgendein zweifelhaftes Geschäft verwickelt. Sie saßen ziemlich lang so. Ich weiß nicht genau, was hier los ist, aber es sieht unangenehm aus. Beide Arten sind keine Fleischfresser und es war daher vielleicht alles ganz harmlos.

Im Frühjahr waren wir mit der Veilchenschau enttäuscht. Es war dieses Jahr ziemlich unscheinbar. Es sieht so aus, als hat das schlechte Wetter sie dieses Jahr dazu gebracht, sich auf das vegetative Wachstum zu konzentrieren. Wir haben einige große Gruppen die an den üblichen Stellen wachsen.

Das Wetter war in der letzten Woche richtig schrecklich und wir sind kaum im Garten gewesen. Heute hat sich die Sonne kurz gezeigt, und obwohl es nicht sehr warm war waren viele Insekten im Garten unterwegs.

Ich fand diesen Graurandiger Zwergspanner im Haus. Ich hatte vorher nur ein schlechtes Foto von dieser Art und ich werde es nun mit diesem ersetzen, da es viel scharfer ist.

Es flogen viele Große Ochsenaugen und Schornsteinfeger im Garten herum und auch Feurige Perlmuttfalter und Gemeine Scheckenfalter.

Das nasse Wetter hat einer unserer Distel im Distelgarten veranlasst, eine erstaunliche Größe zu erreichen. Hier ist ein Foto von Christine neben diesem Koloss.

Ich dachte ich hatte eine neue Mottenart für den Garten als ich diese Pseudargyrotoza conwagana an einem Fenster entdeckte. Aber ich hatte diese Art schon vor ein paar Jahren aufgeschrieben. Um meine Enttäuschung zu lindern, habe ich ein Foto dieser grauen Mikromotte aufgenommen die an der Nordseite vom Haus saß. Wir sehen jedes Jahr viele davon und ich weiß, es wird fast unmöglich sein, die Art zu bestimmen - zumal sie auch ihre Antennen versteckte. Ich hatte immer den Verdacht, daß es sich um Psyche casta handelt, da wir viele Sackträgerlarven überall am Haus und im Garten haben, aber es könnte jedes Mitglied dieser Familie sein. 

Das Wetter bleibt weiterhin wechselhaft. Wir hatten trotzdem drei neue Fliegenarten, eine neue Mottenart und eine neue Käferart für den Garten. Die abgebildeten Pferdefliegen müssen männlich gewesen sein, da sie sich mehr für den Pollen interessierten als für mich. Immerhin hat die Pferdebremse meine Fotos nur so lange geduldet. Sie hatte irgendwann zu viel und flog direkt auf mich zu. Ich habe sie wegwischen können und sie ist weggeflogen.

Ich habe ein paar sonstige Fotos mithochgeladen.