This is a picture of a hole in my garden.
And why should this interest you? Well in fact, it probably doesn’t interest most people.
For my sins, I found it very exciting. To me it seemed an extremely interesting hole. My immediate thought was that I had stumbled upon the entrance of a solitary bee’s nest. I was delighted!
Well, just long enough to take a closer look and see how big it was. Definitely not the entrance to a bee’s nest. But it did have a well-travelled looking little path leading to the entrance. Something was definitely going in and out and it was bigger than a bee. I had no ideas about what it might be but I was desperate to find out. So it was a matter of patience.
I settled down to out-stare the hole.
I was rewarded by some movement. I got the camera at the ready and out popped a head. A quick photograph, and I was still none the wiser.
A bit of movement and he was gone back down his hole, only re-appearing if I remained still and quiet.
This thing with the big bulbous head was not a beetle. After some head scratching and some research on the Internet, I believe it is a field cricket. It was the first time I had seen one.
Strangely the same night he (or a friend) came to sing in the front garden so I nipped out to take another photo.
And I had thought it was cicadas that had been serenading us all this time! Now I know who sings to us in the summer.
Maybe next time I’ll find a solitary bee’s nest.
a french garden 