Black Hoverfly

The hoverflies are almost all gone now: I only saw one on my walk round the lakes yesterday.  So here is a photo of one from back in mid-summer: an all black hoverfly, probably Cheilosia sp. (Diptera: Syrphidae).  The genus Cheilosia contains a lot of all black species and it would be rash of me to try to narrow down the classification any further.

[Note added 2010-09-29: The swollen orange antennae mark this as a female Cheilosia pagana.  See here for further details.]

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-07-27.

Anthomyiid Fly

An Anthomyiid fly, probably Anthomyia procellaris (Diptera: Anthomyiidae) on yarrow (Achillea millefolium).  The pattern of black patches on the upper thorax seems not quite right for the similar Anthomyia pluvialis, however, as there is quite a bit of variation in these patterns, so I could be wrong.  (The Anthomyiidae should not be confused with the Anthomyzidea, another, quite distinct, family of flies.)

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-08-12.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/d3LG-4zpNL6j2CmSyj1hWg?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvboqqAMSuo/SshV4hMcPPI/AAAAAAAAEnE/1QgTdZ6cuz4/s800/Anthomyia-procellarisAnthomyid--fly-20090812a.JPG" /></a>

A Leaf Weevil

A weevil, probably either Phyllobius sp. or Polydrusus sp (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) on an oak leaf.  These two genera are rather difficult to distinguish, as shown by these pictures, and by this post at Yahoo! Answers.  In particular, the advice about hooks on the upper part of the legs, given on this page at the Garden Safari seems to be unreliable.

Also, I do not think that it can be Pachyrinus lethierryi (in spite of this photo at Wikipedia) because the latter should  have a broad snout and be associated with juniper bushes and cypress trees (the Wikipedia photo may have been misidentified).

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-09-05.

Garden Spider

A European garden spider, Araneus diadematus (Araneae: Araneidae), recognizable by the white crucefix on its back (just visible between its elbows in the above photo).  This individual has been guarding my bedroom window since the last week of August.

Photos taken in Reading, UK, on 2009-09-05.

Learning jQuery

If you ever need to learn jQuery then probably your best starting point is Jeffrey Way's excellent jQuery for Absolute Beginners Video Series.  It assumes that you have a reasonable grasp of HTML/XHTML, CSS and JavaScript, but then that is only to be expected because jQuery itself is a clever blend of these technologies.

I originally only started on the video series to fill in time until my copy of Learning jQuery 1.3 (Chaffer and Swedberg, Pakt Publishing, 2009) arrived.  However, even though the book was delivered yesterday, and I am only half way through the series, I have learnt so much from the videos that I am going to continue and finish them all before starting on the book.

Update on Thu 2009-10-08 by Tristram Brelstaff

I have just finished this series and here are my thoughts on it. 

I found the pacing ideal: Way doesn't try to put to much into each episode, but I still felt as if I was making significant progress. At various points I was able to stop the video and work ahead on my own, and so was able to reinforce lessons learnt in earlier episodes.

Way's programming style sometimes leaves a bit to be desired: he tends to code fast, leaving missing semicolons, unbalanced parentheses, and ragged formatting to be sorted out the debugging stage.  But this gives him a chance to demonstrate the use of the Firebug debugger.  He also seems to be trying out different editors at various stages in the series, but eventually settles down to NotePad++.

All in all, an excellent introduction to jQuery. 

Jeffrey Way has produced similar video series on PHP and on Wordpress, see here for more details.