Smaller in Sardinia

The Safari was off to a flying start with the insects in Sardinia when fresh off the plane on onto the coach when we spotted a shieldbug clinging to the outside of the bus's window.

Best we could get with the phone through the coach's tinted double glazed window

Once we reached the hotel we soon saw several butterflies flitting round the gardens, Large and Small Whites, Clouded Yellow and some little blue ones that were very very fast. Anyway they'd all have to wait until we'd shown our milk bottle white pins at the pool for a couple of hours.

In the evening a whizzy thing shot past us and landed on the rocks close by.

A Hummingbird Hawkmoth...it would be a few days before we had the opportunity to try to get any pics of them in flight. Eventually we did take about a thousand shots one afternoon one of which might just have come out OK.

We'd have preferred a face on shot but would have to wait until the end of our hols before we managed to get a couple or three that were any good.

They're flippin tricky and even in the 'semi-tropics' you need good light, or at least for them to fly in areas bathed in sunshine rather than in the shadows which they seemed to favour!

Other butterflies flitting around were Painted Ladies

and later in the week a few Meadow Browns.

For once it all came together with the little blue ones which turned out to be the very common and widespread Long Tailed Blue.

They rarely settled so getting an open wing shot was a bonus

On our very last full day we saw two fluttering around together all across a large patch of Rosemary bushes and fortunately both came to rest close by.

And then we spied a totally new butterfly, a tiny brown one. Luckily this one settled just about within range of the lens too. Another common and widespread one, Brown Argus.

One of our sight-seeing trips had us at a beach where Wifey spotted a little skipper basking in a sunny spot in the sand at the edge of the track. It took us ages to see where she was pointing but then we found it much closer than we'd expected, a Mallow Skipper.

There were lots of grasshoppers, seemingly all of the same species and incredibly hard to spot until they moved.

 Until we found a stripey one that stuck out like a sore thumb.

During one of our afternoon rambles with the camera we came across a Dung Beetle doing what they do best. We watched it for ages as it went back and forth collecting fried Rabbit pellets and relocating them under a little pile of twigs.

We didn't see many dragonflies, one large one which could have been an Emperor and plenty of these small golden yellow ones.

Just look at those eyes!

Every day we saw plenty of Carpenter Bees but again they were pretty tricky to get decent shots of and it took us a while.

It's those eyes - no contrast with the face makes for awkward photography, and of course in the afternoon warmth they don't keep still for long.

We've also got a couple of crazy wasps still to process for you.

All good stuff if hard work at times but we enjoyed the challenges the Mediterranean invertebrates gave us.

Where to next? Some scaly and other stuff for you tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's too quick in your outback.