Dear Readers, I don’t know about you but it’s been a bit of a silent spring in these parts – after the arrival of the hairy-footed flower bees in April and May, I have mostly been seeing honeybees and nothing else. Where are my favourites (yes, I know you aren’t supposed to have favourites), the bumblebees? So today I was delighted to see this furry blob – I got a better look at it than any of my photos show, and I’m fairly sure it was an Early Bumblebee (Bombus praetorum) (yellow stripe, black stripe, yellow stripe, orange-y bum). Apparently they can be on the wing from February, but not this year I suspect, with our long, cold spring. They are important pollinators of soft-fruits, but this one rather liked the green alkanet and the cat mint (which, typically, a cat has sat upon, squashing half of it flat).

There is a Facebook page called ‘Crap Bird Photography’ which gives me endless amusement (and indeed I have submitted some of my masterpieces and have gotten the requisite number of laugh-y emoticons). If only there was a ‘Crap Insect Photography’ page! I have so many that I could start one all on my own.

Looking at the bee below I think there must have been two bumblebees, this one is quite clearly a common carder (Bombus pascuorum), a little ginger bee with a long flight season – they are often the last bumbles on the wing in late autumn.

And there is another tiny bee with a white face that I’m eager to get a photograph of, but I shall wait until I’m sure of the id before I post.

In the meantime, my twenty minutes in the front garden has lifted my spirits and got the crick out of my back. Now, back to my different modes of photosynthesis revision. Crassulacean Acid Metabolism, anybody?