I realised the other day that my blog has become very insect heavy recently featuring very few animals larger than your hand. If you’re hoping this blog post will be different, I’m afraid you’re going to be a little disappointed, its all about insects, lots and lots of them. I will try to explain why I upload so many insect pictures though. Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, make up more than half of all the known animal species in the world and without them we simply could not exist. This is the reason I’m so interested in insects, their amazing diversity of shapes, sizes, colours and survival strategies means there’s nearly always a new insect to spot/photograph and something new to learn. All you have to do is take the time to look,  just  go outside and really look at your surroundings and you won’t be disappointed.

This weekend I didn’t have to venture far from home to find a multitude of different and wonderful insect species. Between my garden and the short 1 km road from our house to the beach I discovered a multitude of insects I’d never seen before.

Here’s a selection of the beautiful insects I saw last weekend.

There were some flies….

This cool plant hopper, moth and beetle I spotted one night…….I also saw some awesome Hummingbird Hawk-moths and a black wasp with red hairs zooming between flowers on the same bush.There was this cool dragonfly….and then there were butterflies, lots of them, and, nearly all species I’d never seen before (I’ve left out the ones I’ve seen before)

Some caterpillars (Bagworm Moth caterpillars possibly) in their cool protective cases.

It wasn’t all insects I did see a few larger creatures like the Oriental Garden Lizards draped over bushes and fence posts and some very loud birds that mobbed and dive-bombed me as I walked down the road.

One weekend which really shows just how much insect life is out there when you really look.