Greenish
It was a dour and fairly cold day, and invert activity was minimal. I went out for coffee and cake in Stratford with R, which was good, and then went shopping for supplies for some batch cooking I’m about to … Continued
Common Carder
My day began well, with a productive invertebrate hunt while the morning was still cool after overnight frost. Then things went badly awry, when I decided to tidy up the little free-standing container pond on the patio, and discovered that … Continued
Ploughing her own furrow
When I saw this bee I said “YES!!”, because I thought I’d found a female Orange-legged Furrow Bee (Halictus rubicundus) – a species I’ve only recorded here a couple of times previously. This was shortly followed by “Aaargh – NO!!”, … Continued
Multitasking
I was impressed with the casual way this Hairy-footed Flower Bee used his front feet to clean some of the pollen from his proboscis as he flew from one aubretia flower to another. I sometimes eat while on the move, … Continued
Blossom time
Bee-flies and blossom: what could be nicer? Blackthorn is flowering in all the hedgerows in the village (though sadly not in our own little wildlife hedge, which isn’t yet mature enough), and the early emergers among the season’s nectar feeders … Continued
Garden lists
This morning I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and wrote out a list of everything that needs doing to bring the garden back into some kind of order, trying to divide the elephant task into … Continued
Tube feeder
If there’s anything more pleasing than having a bowl of grape hyacinths flowering on the patio wall opposite the kitchen window, it’s having two, bookending the stretch of wall like stone lions, only better. And if there’s anything nicer than that, … Continued