I have two lovely fresh female mining bees for you today, both photographed in the brief window of opportunity between our last weekend guests leaving in sunshine at lunch time, and the weather closing in less than an hour later. … Continued
I spent much of the day in the garden, doing a rough tidy of the long border at the front of the house. There was a definite feel of spring in the air, and noticeably more invertebrates out and about. … Continued
I don’t know why the Romans felt that they needed a word to describe the state of being feather-footed, but apparently they did, and ‘plumipes’ was it. ‘Anthophora’, I think, is a Greek term for flowering plants. So this little … Continued
For most of today the wind was blowing in the upper teens of miles per hour, gusting to the mid-thirties, and was driving waves of mixed but largely unenticing weather. These were not ideal conditions for outdoor macro photography, obviously, … Continued
When I posted my first Andrena fulva of the season, a few days ago, I mentioned that they seem to have quite a broad palette, compared with some other species of bee which can be finicky about their food. Today … Continued
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
I’ve been keeping a vague eye on this plant since it appeared in the front border last week, under its own steam – given how difficult I find it to get things to establish in this soil, I’m always interested … Continued
