Assassin …
What’s this coming up the branch, a new kind of bug, a mutant … or is it an assassin bug holding on to dinner.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
She sees me and does an about-turn. But then she can’t see me past her package and I no longer exist in her small world. Until …
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… I get around the other side. But she soon settles down, me being no apparent threat. Unwilling to relinquish her catch.
Up close you can just see how she uses her lance/proboscis/stabber to pierce and hold onto her prey.
And later that day, after her meal, she’s wandering a flower spike in the garden and positioning herself for the next days hunting. … But… what’s that in the background? It looks like a face but it’s a spider sitting in its web.
If there’s anything can discourage an assassin bug it’s this spider, an orb weaver. But they never meet this dark night. Who knows what may be the next …
… all grown up, what the Assassin Baby eventually develops into.
It has been an unusual year in many respects but the point here is there has been very few small creatures in the garden.
I can think of a number of reasons – combinations of rain, sun, birds, etc – but at summer’s end the ‘last man standing’ is the assassin bug.
So, I present to you the winner of this years trophy … well, thank god – whatever that is – insects don’t have personalities.
And every body dies eventually.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click on those pictures for a closer look
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Nature's Place 
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