Plants, Wildlife

Soggy bee on allium for GBBD

Damp mornings are perhaps not the best ones to go out with a camera but yesterday the garden didn’t disappoint revealing another new wildlife sighting. Refreshed foliage, flowers with raindrops and a soggy bee resting on a flower were to be expected, The final moult stage of a seven spot ladybird was definitely not. Research tells me this stage can last up to two weeks, very useful to know after my spotting emerging damselflies day.

An entomologist I certainly can’t claim to be, not remotely, but I had an ID guess at this black bug given there were ladybird larvae on flowers above. To my surprise I was right and that fuelled my interest to know more. I do find myself smiling when I see a ladybird. I liked reading that most animals don’t like their taste. I never thought of that, but then again they are red so that should have been a clue. It’s great news for the gardener as they can go through a lot of aphids in their lifetime. I’m thinking they could possibly be helping my problem with the cypress aphid on my leylandii hedge.

Taking part with other bloggers for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day (GBBD) was the real reason I went out with my camera yesterday. It’s fun to see what is flowering around the world on the 15th of the month. It’s also very surprising to see familiar plants at the same stage. GBBD has been hosted at May Dreams Gardens for as long as I’ve been blogging. Well done, Carol, for keeping this going.

Here in Perthshire, Scotland there’s a mix of colours as can be seen in the autoplay photo slideshow below. These images were taken in my partially shaded back garden. White flowers stole the show for me yesterday. There are others in flower in my sunnier front garden including the wildflower greater knapweed, sedum, pink allium, and aubretia. More insect captures that caught my eye follow with a few other garden updates.

Movement by this soldier beetle brought my attention to the black bug.
The black bug aka the pupae of the seven spot ladybird.
First 2020 sighting of seven spot ladybird on April 7th.
The pre pupae stage, the larvae of the seven spot ladybird.
Red tailed bumble bee enjoying the pollen of the oxeye daisy.
Love this, the bumble bee disperses pollen into the air on take off.
This past week, June 6th saw newly emerged fledgling great tits in the garden.
June 11th saw newly fledged coat tits discovering water for the first time.

So that’s a good flavour of the garden in the middle of Jun 2020. I look forward to catching up with other gardens around the world later. I wonder if I will see familiar faces both in flowers and bloggers. It’s great to discover new ones for both. I hope you all have been enjoying your gardens and the wildlife you discover there as much as I am. I really can’t believe I continue to see and learn new things, it’s going out with a camera that does it.

I’d like to add that here in the UK, a week today, 22nd -28th June is National Insect Week. It is aimed at encouraging everyone of all ages to get interested and learn more about insects. Sounds good to me. Here’s some current info:

Entomology at Home for National Insect Week

National Insect Week #NIW2020 on 22nd to 28th June 2020 will not involve physical events, to reduce the transmission of Covid-19 virus. We hope you will join us in a virtual campaign to celebrate the little things that run the world. Over the next weeks and months we will be expanding our online resources and activities, linking out to the many National Insect Week partner organisations, so that as many as possible can do entomology at home.

National Insect Week

This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in June 2020.

15 thoughts on “Soggy bee on allium for GBBD

  1. Wonderful photos! I love close-ups of pollinators. They can be hard to get, since they move around so, but you even got a bee in flight! My son emailed me a picture of a lady bug larva to ask me what it was, he said they were all over the place. I was happy to tell him what they were. They are so unusual, like baby dragons.

    1. Thank-you, Lisa, thanks for visiting too. Yes, it is a challenge following pollinators with a camera especially when there’s a breeze. I enjoy it though. Yes, you are right there, I’ve thought the ladybird larvae look like dragons too. That’s brilliant you were able to ID them for your son.

  2. Hi Jeannie, that’s a plant that I remember from my childhood where I saw it in boggy areas and moorland. I loved seeing its fluffy heads blowing in all directions like a bad hair day. It made me smile. I picked it for my pond for sentiment but was aware it might spread a bit and could be a problem. However, it has taken a while to get to this stage so maybe it’s a well behaved bad hair day pond plant 😁 I love it because its a contrast to the other plants too.

  3. Oh those sweet little coal tits. Your garden has lots of young wildlife now. I have never heard the sounds that little fox made. We saw a family of foxes with little ones about like this. They were still with their mom.

    1. Hello again Lisa, welcome to wordpress 😁 yes these coal tits were cute and prob familiar looking to you as adults look similar to your chickades. Glad you got to hear these foxes, I thought you’d especially find it interesting. Yes, it should still have been with mum. Poor little thing

    1. Hello Anna, thank-you I have been enjoying getting out with my camera.

      Ah yes, all change here! I began back on blogspot back in 2006 with a standard template, then I had help from OH customising it to the format you would have been familiar with. He changed much in the programming. I’ve loved it but in recent years I fancied a new fresher look but was aware of the work he’d put in. He was suggesting wordpress but I’ve been wary of such a big change.I never saw any templates I felt i could work with and stopped looking, blogging slowed up too. Then in May I looked again at wordpress templates and was about to abandon it all over again when I spotted one I liked Then the big migration began. Its had it’s tech challenges, fortunately OH was on hand again especially as I requested customisation here too. He was nervous bringing all my posts over, formatting won’t completely match news posts but that’s ok. Everything is in the one place and I’ll tweak some old stuff another time We still have a list we are working through. I am delighted to be back enjoying blogging again and embracing a different way of doing it. Nice to see you again.

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