Dear Readers, it’s been a hot, humid day, followed by a thunderstorm, followed by some more of the hot, humid stuff. I’m back at work after my exams and my inbox is hilarious. I used to start reading my emails from the oldest ones, but after many years I’ve learned that the best way to do it is actually to start with the most recent, because it’s surprising how many of them have been sorted out by the time you get to the end of the thread. Still, it’s strange to be back, and I still feel a bit disoriented.

I popped outside after the storm just to see which plants were still vertical, and spotted the loveliest little common carder bee. I have a great fondness for these little ginger chappies – they seem even more busy than your average bumble. Their nests, which are ‘carded’ together with grass and moss, are usually on the surface of, or just below, the ground, and there are rarely more than 100 workers. They have a great fondness for deadnettle flowers, or foxgloves, and they are able to ‘buzz pollinate’, so you might see them making one hell of a buzzy noise around your tomatoes (or in my case, the bittersweet that’s been growing wild). They need to vibrate the flowers at just the right frequency to get them to relinquish their pollen. In countries where there are no bumblebees (such as Australia), the tomatoes are instead pollinated by humans (usually migrant workers ) with the equivalent of a plant vibrator. So if ever I’m feeling hard done by, I always consider someone tickling tomatoes in the blistering heat and count my many, many blessings.

In the south of England there are normally two generations of common carders, which explains why you might see them on the wing right into late October in a mild year. In the north their flight season is a lot shorter, but one was recently spotted on Orkney, but as climate change edges many creatures further and further north, who knows where it will turn up?

And in other news, my teasel is coming along very nicely, and looks more and more like a skinny, spiky green person every day.

And my bottlebrush plant is about to burst – my lovely Aunties, Rosemary and Linda, who died last year, bought it for me when they came to visit, so it’s very special, and I’m pleased to see it doing well. It’s another one that the bees normally love, so I’m hopeful, but I have to say it’s been very, very quiet on the bee front so far this year. Let’s hope that things improve.

Incidentally, I noticed how the swifts seem to follow the insects – after the rain they came screaming down the street, but as it warms up and gets less humid they get higher and higher. It reminds me of when I laid on my back as a teenager and watched hundreds of them swirling about until I had to hold onto the grass because I felt as if I was going to fall into the sky. I hope that somewhere they are still being found in such huge numbers,  because around here you’re lucky if you see half a dozen at any one time. I’m sure that the loss of insects means less insect-eating birds, but I’d love to know how it’s going where you live. How are the bees, and the birds?