SUMMER DAYS IN THE FOREST - part five

Walking in the shade of the trees surrounded by refreshing green is a nice way to get rid of the heat naturally during these days at the peak of the summer.

And there is always something interesting to find and observe, a lot of attractive posting material crawling and flying around :)

This Gonepteryx rhamni butterfly looks like a nice leaf, one of the many leafs around ...a very good camouflage.

Some plants are crawling around the trees and shrubs, often forming interesting spirals and rings while growing around those taller and more robust plants. This is one of those, I don't know the name, it's a thorny and resilient plant ... while the one on the following photograph ...

... is soft, juicy, it has no thorns ...

... and sometimes forms ...

... some very elegant garlands that look like something made by fairies or produced in the flower shop.

I photographed this one along the small road that leads through the woods.

This plant has many small tendrils ...

... that make possible the forming of the circles.

This beautiful and pretty large fly, the Volucella zonaria, was resting here while I was photographing the plant, so she ended up in the post too.

Volucella zonaria mimics the hornet with her colors, and although is considerably smaller is still larger and more robust than her relatives, so when you see this fly flying around it really looks like a danger is buzzing around.

This insect was photographed on another climbing plant, the wild grape.
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When not moving, is almost invisible. Is flat, is green, and very successfully hides in plain sight

In the lateral view you can see only a few details of legs peeking from that limpet - like shape. To take a good look at the entire insect under the armor ...
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... you must put it on its back.

This is the Thistle tortoise beetle (Cassida rubiginosa)
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These beetles feed on leaves of various Asteraceae plants, not only Thistle.

It's a common insect, but also an amazing one, with a very uncommon look.

While photographing the Tortoise beetle ...

... I took also a few shots of the surrounding spirals ...

... the wild vine tendrils.
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On this enlargeable photograph, especially if you actually enlarge the picture, you can see the small larvae of the Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata lady beetle, feeding on mildew.

Not far from there ...

... some small moth was resting on the lower branch of a small elm tree.

On this photograph you can see the Dysauxes ancilla moth ... and on the following picture ...

... you can see a pair mating.

This hairy crab spider, the Heriaeus hirtus, has caught some small furry moth. I quickly took this shot on the upper side of the leaf ... and then ... a moment later ...

... the spider was hiding underneath the leaf.

In the same area, on the shrubs around the trees, I found also this minuscule flower on a pretty large leaf.

I don't know the species. The silk threads are almost invisible on the picture, but you can see a bit of that stuff above the spider, is like a little invisible tent, with more holes than actual tent -material.

On this photograph you can see an aphid caught in the silk near the spider. The spider isn't much bigger than the aphid, and the aphid is a minuscule creature ... so you can get a good idea of how small this arachnid is. It's a lovely, small and furry spider.

This, much bigger, furry fly was resting not far from there.
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This is the Thereva nobilitata, a Stiletto fly species.

Here is another small spider ... this one is hanging on its orb ... and will eventually grow pretty large if survives the young age. This is some Argiope species, don't know exactly which, young spiders of various species look pretty similar although the adults are clearly different. On the following photograph ...

... you can see something that I saw only once, on the occasion when this picture was taken.
I don't know what is this. It looks like some kind of cocoon.

This is one of the many Planthoppers that can be seen around the woods.

Here you can see a green version of the same shape. This planthopper has some problems with the wing and a red parasite on it.

Here is yet another, a bit different planthopper.

On this photograph you can see a tiny flower in the hairy macro - landscape of some plant that grows in shady places on the forest floor... and something black inside the flower.
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The small black thing is the pollen beetle Brassicogethes aeneus ...

... and with this flower - power species, this macro - oriented walk through the woods - ends, THE END.
As always in these posts on HIVE, all the photographs are my work.