Les Humphreys tells us that this is called 'sweet marten scat', it being the result of a pine marten perhaps over-enjoying the wealth of red berries which are weighing down the branches at the moment.
And this is a sexton beetle, doing its best to bury the mess.
Les seems to be inundated with bugs. He writes of these ones, "
For the last couple of months every aquatic plant in our garden pond has been covered with them. They appear to have gone now."
Les wondered whether anyone knew what they were.
Many thanks to Les for story & pictures.
Many thanks to Chris who writes, "I'm no expert, but Les's bugs look like aphids to me. They're arranged on the stems in just the same way that greenfly, blackfly and rose aphids gather to suck the bejasus out of your broad beans, roses, and anything else you value in the garden. There are zillions of species; you'd need to be an aphidologist (is there such a word?) or aphidophile (if that isn't an oxymoron) to identify them."
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