What's Buzzing or Flying near you today... 2015

@wiseowl - looks like she's eyeing up your bean poles and calculating the harvest

 

No wonder your status is "Bashful"

 

Excellent! And I think they are all so true of you too @wiseowl

 

I've got these little guys making numerous burrows in the slight bank where we keep the rubbish bin. No idea what they are, but definitely hard-working, judging by the pollen sacs!!




(That is a half-shell from a hazel nut, and a catkin, in the last photo for scale)

They look like solitary bees, as each is going back to a different pile of soil. Should I move the rubbish bin for the summer, or will they be happy to share the corner with an occasional foot-fall?

 

@Spruce will be able to give us an ID @Sian in Belgium - when he gets on a bit later,
Jenny

 

Hi do they look like these two

 

Not really, Spruce.

The body (furry bit) was lighter, and the thorax? (Part of body below the legs) seemed to be all black, rather than chestnut, then black....

I will see if I can get a better photo with my other camera tomorrow.

 

Photography on here is so good. Butterflies, few sorts of Bumble, honey, usual birds including Buzzards and Kites.

 

That looks much more like it, Armandii.
So maybe the yellow legs are just that - yellow legs! - rather than pollen sacs. Reading about it, the habitat is about perfect too. Small piles of soil, in an already bare area of grass, next to a coppiced hazel group. Good to see that they are indeed reluctant to sting - they certainly seemed more likely to fly away when I tried to clear leaves to photograph, and that was the poor things trying to go through their own front door!

I will try again to take some pictures this afternoon, yesterdays' were taken with my Ipad, so not tha brilliant. Time to dig out my DSLR...!

 

Another walk around Durlston CP early this morning and boy was it cold and windy.
No wonder there weren't any migrants showing up, just a handful of Swallows.
The cliffs again were the only active place.
Underside of a Greater Black Backed Gull.


Fulmar Petrel, usually only seen flying but this one landed on the cliff in front of me instead of under and out of sight.


This shows the 'tube nose' bill which if you are too close it will project a foul smelling fluid from it's stomach as a defence mechanism!!




This female Kestrel had just been mobbed by a Jackdaw.


I got a good view of her later as she had settled on a ledge below.

 

Great pictures again Strongy!