The bee spotting season has been in full swing.
The main event of the week was a trip to the Spetchells in the hope of catching up with ashy or tawny mining bee in addition to the hordes of buffish mining bees I expected to be present. This certainly proved to be the case with males swarming around in some spots as well as numerous orgies taking place on the paths.
The other two did not make themselves apparent apart from one suspect tawny that was probably a carder bee. It would have been hard to spot them amongst all the others anyway. However we did catch up with a couple of samples of Gooden's Nomad Bee, very small males, and the odd bumblebee.
Further along there was a single peacock butterfly and a good number of sand martins on the wing though they don't seem to have nested yet as the chalk holes were unvisited when we passed by.
Following the track back down towards the river there were a couple of red-tailed bumblebee queens and a few speckled wood. Then we crossed over the hill again onto the track by the railway tracks I'd read somewhere that south facing slopes with dandelions are good for ashy mining bees. None turned up but there were dandelions a plenty and a few minute male mining bees as well as a small tortoiseshell, a green-veined white and a couple of orange tips.
Unfortunately even phoning a friend couldn't help identify the last bee but in the same area I came across another specimen that is thought to be a gypsy cuckoo bumblebee.
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It's amazing what you see when you look.
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| White-tailed Bumblebee |
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| Small White |
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