Summer is here! Fearing it might only last one weekend I spent all of it in the garden, though actually it looks like we have at least a week of hot sunshine ahead. Time in the garden equals time spotting interesting wildlife, and I saw this beetle (or different instances of it, who can tell) on three separate occasions – usually landing on the big white flower clusters of Hydrangeas or Phlox.

It is a Spotted longhorn beetle (Rutpela maculata) and apparently quite common. It feeds on the pollen and nectar of flowers, with its larvae living in rotten wood. I have a dead tree stump in my garden that swarms with insects coming in and out of holes and I like to think it's a great source of flying variety. I see a lot of exotic looking solitary wasps and bees coming and going from it.