How Vivid do you want it?

 Took myself off on a nice trip to Farndon, to have a good walk around and see what I might find at Cottage Lane Reserve.

The answer was, not very much. 

The tufted vetch that gives the reserve a feel of a bushy ocean in late summer was largely over, and red clover was the dominant plant in the meadow area, while purple and yellow loosestrife fringed the ponds in, er, purple and yellow. 

More yellow was supplied by a lovely second flight male brimstone that was feeding off clover. It's rare to see them settle for long, but this one took its time. Too far away to photograph however. 

Migrant hawker dragonflies were on patrol too, flying in those sinister zig zag patterns, always looking for hapless prey. 

OK, so, there was quite a lot to see really. I just didn't get to photograph any of it...

However, there were other beautiful things I found to show you. On the way out, I'd noticed that the red valerian outside the front of a sheltered housing complex was a bit of a butterfly magnet, and sure enough when I came back there were small tortoiseshells feeding off it, one of them pristine, the other so raggedy I was amazed it could fly. 

A marigold also provided the colourful backdrop for a bumblebee. 

Yeah! Let's turn that photo saturation up baby!!!

Si

All text and images copyright 26.08.21

Today's Buzzy Buzzers

Had really good views of two bee species today, at various times and with a 9 mile run in between!

I could see the first through the library windows, visiting what I suppose was late flowering white squill around a beech tree in the grounds. When I got out there - after a couple of hours enjoying reading all of your blogs! - I thought there were two distinct species, a common carder swiftly visiting the flowers, and an all black species flying about rapidly at spiky angles.

I managed to get photos of the "common carder", but the black bee never settled for a minute.

But when I posted them on twitter to the excellent @bumblebeewatching I was given a link, and told to look at the face. This is not a carder bumblebee at all, it is a hairy footed flower bee! The white face is a giveaway. The black bee on view was actually a female of this species. I've seen the females before, but mistaken them for field cuckoo bumblebees.

So I didn't spot them first on the Hawton lungwort!

The other bee, most definitely a bumble this one, was having a leisurely feed off grape hyacinth in Friary Road park.

Now this bee looks like a common white tailed bumble perhaps. But I'm not sure. The absence of pollen sacs, and the orange yellow darts on the white tail, makes me wonder if this is a vestal cuckoo bumblebee, a large species I saw in my garden last year.

But as ever, I'm happy to be corrected. I have to be!

Si