Vivid
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Common Carder as strongly coloured as this one before – it was the brightest thing in the garden on a rather dark and moody afternoon, and contrasted especially well with the toadflax it … Continued
Willughby’s Leafcutter Bee
I don’t know who Willughby was, but he or she managed to get themselves a truly beautiful bee. Worldwide there are over fifteen hundred species within the genus Megachile, but in the UK we only have seven, and M. willughbiella … Continued
Speed Feeding Champion
The third day of the Alternative Olympic Games came to a thrilling climax this afternoon, with the finals of the 1m Speed Feed (Bees, solitary) competition. As had been predicted by most pundits, this came down to a head-to-head between … Continued
Sex and violence
I was watching a Wool Carder noodling through the hedge woundwort, thinking that it was smaller than I remembered, and half-forming the thought that it might be a female, when a second one swooped in and pounced. I think it … Continued
Osmia bicornis
This morning was very wet and stormy, but the thunderstorms cleared around lunch time and the afternoon was mostly warm and sunny – though scudding clouds still blew through and changed the light quite dramatically from time to time. The … Continued
Well-equipped
You don’t have to have a proboscis as long as this to drink from the blossom of a crab apple tree, but it certainly helps – especially if you’re a male bee and you’re not collecting pollen to provision a … Continued
Incoming
posted in: Bees, Butterflies, Flowers and plants, Invertebrates, My garden, Trees, Worcestershire |
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Another day in the garden saw a border that has never been cleared in the two decades we’ve lived here finally get tidied, edged, and mulched. In the process of which I broke an edging iron on the rock-hard ground … Continued