Doing well

All the wet weather is good for the trees and bugs
I'm seeing lots and lots of vegetable grasshoppers (Attractomorpha similis - Identification source - Wildlife of Greater Brisbane)

Vegetable grasshopper munching on my sunflowers

The Poincinia trees are doing really well. Every one in the street is flowering heavily.

Poinciana flower

Garden pics 3

Didn't do much gardening yesterday as it was a stinking hot day. Renee and I both enjoyed the storm that finally arrived around 3pm.

This St Andrew's Cross spider (Argiope keyserlingi - identified using Wildlife of Greater Brisbane produced by the Queensland Museum) likes to 'hang' near our under-cover clothes line.

No idea what this sunflower resident bug is.

We've been having quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks so several species of fungi have been popping up.

Another ex-resident of our growing sunflowers. I've thought sometimes in the past that TV docos showing caterpillars munching away were sped up. Not so!

Beneficial insects

I highly recommend a beginner's book for looking after your garden kingdom called The Garden Guardians by Jane Davenport. Jane takes impressive macro pictures. Forget about using pesticides and start managing your real-life insect kingdom on the hop, crawl, fly and scuttle. I love my PlayStation and PC games but this could be just as attention grabbing!

Jane's favourite, a ladybird. This one is sitting on a sunflower leaf. Beneficial. It is most likely a Striped Ladybird (Micraspis frenata - Identification source Striped Ladybird)

Another sunflower leaf inhabitant. NOT beneficial except as food for a bird or predatory insect. It is most likely a Hedge Grasshopper (Valanga irregularis) nymph (baby). Identification source is OzAnimals.

This little beastie was sitting on a rockmelon leaf. Not sure what it is although from the way it was behaving (it looked like it was sucking on something) and its position on the leaf vein I'd say it is a sap sucker.

Walking to and from the shops

So many ground hugging plants pass unnoticed as the showier, larger plants grab your attention with larger flowers and stronger perfumes, but these small, tough colonists of disturbed soil can be just as beautiful.

I probably would not have noticed this little camouflaged insect if I hadn't seen it land. No idea what kind of insect it is.

This little skink (lizard) obligingly stayed put for a photo from only a metre away. The pickings must be good for it after all the recent rain. I think it is an Eastern Water Skink, not sure.

Our local council has done a great job in revegetating the creek banks with native grasses and trees instead of the tangle of vines and dense thickets of weeds.

Garden pics 2

Spare a thought for the poor chook that laid the egg on the left. What was she not thinking?! Renee (my lovely wife) pointed out to me that if you turn a jewel bug upside down it looks very much like a scary mask.

Double-trouble yoker

Jewel bug scary monster mask

Hibiscus flower

Different Hibiscus flower

Take a closer look

Greetings
I intend this blog to be reasonably free-form musings and events from daily life. This first entry is inspired by our garden and the things that you can see if you take a few moments to look closely. If I hadn't been trying to get a photo of a hibiscus flower I would never have spotted the jewel bugs. The hairs on the stems around the watermelon flower are trapping moisture. The garlic flower turned out to have a resident protective spider. The luffa? flower has resident ants. I'm constantly drawn back into the garden by the things that I may stumble across and a simple pleasure in watching things grow.

Jewel bugs (Hibiscus Harlequin Bugs)(Tectocoris diopthalmus)

Watermelon flower

Garlic guard spider

I think it is a 'Common Lynx Spider' - Oxyopes sp. after looking at the Brisbane Insects and Spiders web site.

Garlic flower

Luffa? flower. Cucumber and luffa flowers look very similar but seeing the fruit grow I'm leaning towards Luffa. Check out Luffa.info. The female and male immature flowers look the same as those on the luffa.info site as well. A good picture of a cucumber flower can be found here.