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Bee Memories

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Here’s a lovely little bee for you from a week or two back, before the weather turned wet and blustery.

Remember the bees? They swarmed in our house, which was a tad unfortunate, and then set up home in the soffits of our roof. We grew quite fond of them after a while as they didn’t bother us once they were settled.

Sadly their nest has since been overtaken by wasps which insist on coming into our bathroom on a daily basis! We’ve had to resort to insect-killing spray 😦 Hopefully soon the weather will get too cold for them and we have read that they rarely return to old nests. Fingers tightly crossed that’s true – I’m so sick of having to warily enter my bathroom incase there is a wasp buzzing around in there.

I remember our bees with fondness … much preferable to wasps!

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Big Buff-Tip

Don’t seen to have seen so many caterpillars this year, but a week or so ago, I spotted this chap on the Willow. He’s a rather large Buff-tip Moth caterpillar. I went for an unusual angle to get this shot, looking upwards at him. Seems to work quite well 🙂

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Sweet Bee

I met this bee the other day in the garden, quietly bumbling about in an Evening Primrose flower. It was a cute little thing. It was about to head off to another flower and turned to look at me before it left.

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Scary Shieldbug

I’ve grown quite used to spotting shieldbugs all around the place. Usually they’re the same shade of green as the leaf they’re sitting on, as they’re the common Green Shieldbugs. But at the weekend I spotted this scary fellow:

He’s certainly not as camouflaged as the green ones, and seems rather more viscious – sat there eating a caterpillar! He looks like he’s wearing armour and I’ve discovered that he is a “Spiked Shieldbug” – qutite an apt name.

While out walking I also saw another of the altogether less scary green ones …

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Flight

At the weekend I was having a walk round the village with my daughter and when we reached the village pond there were dragons all around! Lots of Common Darter dragonflies buzzing around, some mating, and also (I think) a Southern Hawker. It was very exciting to be in amongst them and I was lucky enough to get a couple of shots of the Darters in flight! I would have loved to get a shot of the Hawker, but he was much too fast for me!

Here’s one settled on the ground for a better look:

No photos of the Hawker this time sadly, but this is a photo of a Southern Hawker that I managed to capture last year. They’re so pretty!

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Last Butterflies

As it is turning autumnal I expect to be seeing fewer and fewer butterflies, so I thought I’d post a few of those I’ve seen recently.

From a couple of weeks ago, this is the one and only shot I’ve had of a Small Copper this year. It’s not great, but as it was the only one I’ve seen, I’m not too fussed by the quality!

Then there was this Comma butterfly, again the only one I’d seen in our garden this year (although I saw another one down in Bristol):

Last weekend, on one of my first ventures out after being ill, I spotted this Red Admiral enjoying the ivy:

And finally one from yesterday! A Small White:

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Dandelion Central

A couple of weeks ago I was taking photos in the garden and my eye was caught by a hoverfly on a dandelion flower, so I started watching it and taking some photos. I was surprised to find that there was another occupant of the flower – a spider – lurking underneath. The spider had a web from the flower to nearby objects and at one point the hoverfly got caught in it on the way to the flower, and then escaped. You’d think that would put it off, but it kept coming back even so – that flower must have had delicious nectar! A great strategy from the spider there – finding a very popular flower and carefully setting up nearby. I think the spider was pretty well fed – it was finishing off something in the first couple of shots, and would have had a go at the hoverfly I think if it hadn’t escaped, despite the size difference!