Wildlife in House and Home: Soft scale insects

I discovered these strange soft scale insects Coccus hesperdium infesting the underside of the leaves of a Cymbidium orchid on my desk. Each is about 4mm. long and resembles a miniature tortoise.

They are rather more interesting than they seem and undergo a remarkable transformation during their growth - for pictures and details, click here.

Froghoppers

Too hot today to do anything except sit in the shade with a cool beer within easy reach and a camera with a macro lens, watching the froghoppers which are beginning to turn into active adults. This nymph in the late stages of development had left its bath of bubbles behind, then settled on the underside of a lily bud and begun to produce some more 'cuckoo spit'.

This one was keeping cool in its pool of bubbles, while....

... this nymph went walkabout. You can see its wings are developing but have some way to go yet, unlike....

... this adult.

Today's biggest challenge was making sure that none of these little jumpers landed in my beer when they were pinging around in the undergrowth.