I enjoyed a delightful long meander in Cardiff’s magnificent Bute Park yesterday (there will be a blog, probably tomorrow, once I finish going through my photos) and, in the course of that, I made sure to visit one particular small patch of rhododendron. The reason is these little critters, Rhododendron leafhoppers (Graphocephala fennahi).

If you’ve been here a while, you may remember I blogged about them back in August 2016, when I was first introduced to them. I wasn’t sure they’d still be around this late in the year, and there certainly weren’t very many of them, but two or three were hopping from leaf to leaf whenever I tried to get near enough for photos. I’ve since read, on the British Bugs website, that they can be seen as late as November, feeding on rhododendron sap and laying their eggs in the leaf buds.

Leafhoppers come in a splendid variety of colours hence this 2019 diary note: *Note to self: make more of an effort to look for leafhoppers next spring/summer*.