The Weather Warms, More Appears

 I'd been wondering where all the red tailed bumblebees have been this spring; I've not been able to photograph one, and have barely seen any at all. 

Today, as the weather warmed and brightened in the afternoon, they were suddenly everywhere in the nature garden area of campus. 

After a disastrous 2025, the mini meadows have recovered somewhat, and today buttercups were attracting many of these velvety, firey-tailed worker bumbles. 

Nearby, on the rock cransebill, a big queen red tailed bumble was at work, her mighty body bending the delicate stems of these flowers almost onto the ground. It's a relief to see them on the wing again. 

Nearby, found a lovely holly blue butterfly too. 

Around campus there are currently many clumps of ox eye daisies, and one one of these sunshine-meets-fried-egg flowers, I came across another welcome returnee - the characterful and glittering swollen thighed flower beetle. 

They are wonderful little insects, and I hope you have met one too this spring! 

Si 

All images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.05.26 

A Quick Bit of Butterfly Love

 So many reports of large numbers of painted ladies being seen around the UK this spring, and I can certainly confirm that I've seen a couple. 

More than I can say for small tortoiseshells, which seem to have had a disastrous winter hibernation season. 

This individual was lurking among the cotoneaster bushes on campus, you'd think they's stand out a mile, but they really don't until they move. They are so beautiful, and I love the fact that their latin name is "Vanessa"!

The second butterfly is a female orange tip, and like other species that have spent the winter as pupae, they seem to have done much better than the early rising imagos. I've seen plenty flying around, and this one was in the library nature reserve, and unlike most orange tips was actually rather easy to photograph! 

Hopefully you are all seeing some lovely butterflies about. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.05.26 

Rock Cranesbill Love

 On our campus, in the little nature reserve area I and others created many years ago, there is a patch of rock cranesbill growing happily away next to a hawthorn hedgerow. 

They are now blooming pinkily resplendent, and as such are a big attraction for pollinators. 

I saw three different species of bumblebee in short succession yesterday - a common carder, a buff tail and an early bumblebee - while today brought a tiny worker common carder in its distinctive golden furry coat. 

Lots of honey bees also flying around and I caught a glimpse of a red tailed bumblebee queen, the first I have seen this spring. Rather worried about their numbers after the wet winter. 

In other news, my local swift colonies are returning, and I'm starting to hear screeching...

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.05.26 

A Victorious Return to Cricket

 Today the league cricket season returned, and it was to the beautiful setting of Croxton Kerrial, a ground in Leicestershire that used to be the home of a club in the Lincolnshire league, to play a match in the South Notts League bottom division against Bingham 4s. 

Our third team have not won a game for two years. Last year was awful, playing horrible teams at horrible grounds in horrible matches that led to horrible defeats. This year augurs better, nicer grounds, nicer opposition. As it proved today. 

Croxton Kerrial is high up in the Vale of Belvoir, and it's a lovely old village, with the cricket ground set on the the only flat part. As with so many grounds in this part of the world, the red kites seem to love it, and we were graced by low overflights by Britain's most attractive raptor at various intervals. 

The hawthorn hedgerows were in blossom, attracting butterflies, and across the Vale you could see bright yellow fields of oilseed rape in the distance. 

Our skipper, eyes gobbling up the sight of some very short boundaries, decided against type that we would bat first. However, when I went out to umpire first up, you could see from the wicket that batting was not going to be easy. It was obviously going to be slow, and the odd ball was going to pop up. 

And so it proved. We were bowled out for 91, and owed much to two of our senior players who scored about half our runs while the youngsters hung around with them. Me, I was delighted to not get out first ball, and even managed to score two whole runs. 

Although one of them was an outside edge past slip. 

91 wasn't much, but with the wicket now adding pea-rollers to its treacherous mix, we felt we had a chance if we bowled well. And led by our junior bowlers, that's exactly what we did, aided by a glory hunting skipper. We had them 50 for 8 or so, but things got rather tense at this point, as the younger Bingham lads down the order showed a lot of the heart and cricket sense that their senior players had failed to do. 

Myself had a little bowl, and was rather excited to take a wicket with a caught and bowled, two separate things that never happen happening at the same time. My celebration of my first league wicket in two years was thus rather over excited. 

"Mate, he's 13" said the Bingham umpire rather drily. 

More tension ensued with byes, wides and the ball just no longer going to hand in the field. They got to 75, the two youngest lads on the team, before our returning junior castled one of them with another grass cutter of a ball. 

Poor lad was despondent, and his bat and helmet came in for a bit of abuse on the way off. Well, it had been a very tight game. 

But, we won, our first win in two years. Yay for us. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.05.26