During late October, I made two visits to the Gardens, both in great weather, but very different. For the first I was alone with my camera and thoughts, basking in the fiery glow of autumn, but the second, a few days later, was with a throng of up to 30 excited kids and parents on a bug hunt. It was absolutely delightful to be among such an array of sharp eyes, able to spot the teeniest morsel, and to see them enthralled by ladybirds, spiders and bugs. Such infectious enthusiasm for exploring their world boosts my motivation to want to protect it for their futures. And the joy on the face of one little girl when a dragonfly landed on her jumper will last a lifetime, mine and hopefully hers!

Late season butterflies, especially Red Admirals and Commas feeding up before hibernation, were still on the wing with a surprisingly late, newly emerged Small Copper, nectaring especially on Verbena bonariensis.

Likewise the late dragonflies and damselflies, basking, hawking and mating in a last gasp of summer before the cooler weather brings this generation to a close. Most numerous were Common Darters, some looking rather battered by the month end…

…along with Willow Emeralds. Which of these species will take the honours of being the last one of the year?

And sharing the aquatic immature stage of dragons and damsels, although as larvae instead of nymphs, a caddis-fly found camouflage among the browning poolside vegetation. These are tricky to identify, but this is one of the many, quite similar, Limnephilus species.

A few bumblebees, especially Common Carders, were still active, along with plenty of Common Wasps and a few Hornets, all of which apart from the queens are destined to perish shortly:

The most numerous insect group around the garden was the flies, whether groups of midgey minutiae dancing in the fading sunlight, or larger ones basking on sunlit leaves and wooden benches, or feeding at the fading flowers.

Hoverflies included Drone-flies and Grey-spotted Sedgesitter….

… but the specific identity of tachinid parasite-flies is more difficult to be sure of. The large ones with orange sides ‘used to be’ Tachina fera, but another pretty much identical species T. magnicornis has arrived recently in the UK, so we cannot now be so certain.

And the two below can only be assigned to genus, Linnaemya sp. and Siphona sp.

A final fly, strikingly orange with smoky wings, was Thricops diaphanus, from the housefly family. The Essex Field Club map shows only eleven previous records for the county, all in the western half.

Ladybirds, the kids’ favourites were to be found everywhere, mostly Seven-spots with a few Harlequins, but they are now starting to congeal into what will become their overwintering aggregations:

But perhaps the most remarkable insect feature of these walks were the true bugs, more than I have seen all summer. Most numerous were Hairy Shieldbugs along with Green Shieldbugs, some still sporting summer green but others browning into winter camouflage:

Gorse Shieldbugs too, also changing colour but always with the distinctive pale rim: remarkably, these are only the second and third garden records, and neither was on their traditional foodplant of Gorse…

Cinnamon Bugs were especially obvious during the first walk, while a single Bishop’s-mitre (again with only a couple of previous records here) was expertly spotted by one of the kids:

Moving to ‘other invertebrates’ Zebra Jumping-spiders and the harvestman Opilio canestrinii are both found regularly in the garden…

… but a Nigma walckenaeri, nestling under its horizontal web, and a Wrinkled Snail Xeroplexa intersecta were both new.

Amid all this invertebrate enthusiasm and abundance, it was easy to overlook the remaining flowers lighting up and providing a much-needed insect resource in the gardens, beauty made even more dramatic when bejewelled with droplets from the previous nights’ rains:

While the fruits and fungi speak of autumn, the Snowdrops (probably Galanthus regina-olgae, which typically flowers in late autumn) at least provide a hint of assurance that the dark days will pass!

Together with the birds – Redpolls and a Kingfisher during the first walk, and overhead Skylarks and a noticeable increase in presumably immigrant Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Robins on the second – such was the bounty of this autumn, that I almost forgot to enjoy the kaleidoscope of colours. Almost, but not quite… so here is a final flourish of the gardens at their seasonal peak!