Thu 2011-07-21 
An orange fly with distinctive wing markings: probably a male Minettia inusta (Diptera: Lauxaniidae) a female Palloptera quinquemaculata (Diptera: Pallopteridae). Identified using the draft key of Stubbs, 1994.
Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2011-05-30.
Wed 2011-07-20 
One evening a week ago this moth came in through our open living room window. It is a wave moth of genus Idaea, possibly the remutata (plain) form of the riband wave moth Idaea aversata (Lepidoptera: Geometridae). There is also a banded form of this species.
Photo taken in Reading, UK, on 2011-07-10.
Tue 2011-07-19 
A black variant of the hoverfly Merodon equestris (Diptera: Syrphidae).
Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2011-06-04.
Mon 2011-07-18 
Tachinid fly Nowickia ferox (Diptera: Tachinidae), similar to the more common Tachina fera but with black legs and black antennae.
Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2011-07-11.
Sun 2011-07-17 
From back in April: a pair of brassica bugs, Eurydema oleracea (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) mating on a garlic mustard (Allaria petiolata) leaf. These bugs come in black and white, black and red, and black and yellow variants. I have seen all three variants on the same plant.
A black and yellow one from a few days earlier:
And from a recent walk, what I think is a nymph of the same species:
This was on a mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus) but still only a few metres from where I saw the above specimens. The stand of garlic mustard had by then gone to seed and its leaves had turned purple.
Photos taken in the field below Chazey Wood, near Caversham, UK, on 2011-04-24, 2011-04-17 and 2011-07-11, respectively.
