Mon 2008-07-28 
Harlequin ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis) vary a lot in appearance from red spot on black forms, through black spot on red, to black spot on yellow. These are all the same species and, as shown here, interbreed quite freely. Photo taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2008-07-26. The ladybirds that I photographed last November here also appear to be harlequins.
Sat 2008-07-26 
A gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus), probably a male because the females do not have the brownish band in the middle of the yellow patch on the forewings. The meadow brown butterfly is similar, but has less yellow on the forewings and none on the hindwings, and has only one white dot in each eye-spot.
Sun 2008-07-20 
A six-spot burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae).
Photo taken in Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2008-07-20.
Sat 2008-05-24 Earlier this afternoon, I was sitting reading on the sofa in our living room. The window was open and the sunshine was streaming in. The book I was reading was The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I had to get up once to guide a bluebottle fly out out of the window, but soon got back into the book. A bit later I slowly became aware of a buzzing sound, like that of a wasp, but not quite right: too even in volume. Then I realized: not a single wasp but lots of them! I jumped up to look out the window. There were thousands of wasps in the air, orbiting each other like a cloud of giant midges. I rushed round the flat closing all the windows (probably unnecessarily, as they didn't seem to be interested in coming indoors). Slowly, they rose up and moved over our flat roof, and I watched from the kitchen window as they drifted off towards a tree near the main road. The swarm was about 3 to 5 metres in diameter, with occasional members much further away. I last saw them above the path beside the road. Strangely enough, people walking along the path didn't seem to notice them at all.
Sat 2007-10-13 
Today we are experiencing a plague of ladybirds. I counted 12 on and around our living room window and Zoe says that there are more outside on the lawn.
It reminds me of a similar plague in the early summer of 1976. One sunny morning I had an appointment in Eston and afterwards I walked back over the Eston Hills to Guisborough. On the way I came across several plants that were almost completely covered with ladybirds. But those were bright red; the ones today are a duller orange-brown.
There is even a melanistic one:
