Mixed Pickings 1

Oh dear, I feel like I'm getting a bit behind with all this, and quite a variety of species have come my way over the past ten days.

Around that time I did a bike run from Prudhoe to Blaydon checking out dead nettle for any fork-tailed flower bees.  This drew a total blank but I did find a couple of items that caught the attention.

The first one was a complete puzzle as I couldn't decide whether it was a bee or some kind of flying bug, perhaps more likely the latter.

Mystery Bug

Anyway there was a few of them approaching the area of Prudhoe Pumping Station.

Next I went off piste to take a look in the calaminarian grassland at Wylam, which as usual didn't produce any of the exotic flowers pictured on the noticeboard.  But I did find was this little item in a rather sandy area of the track. I'm pretty sure is a blood bee - maybe a box-headed blood bee - though there are one or two mining bees that look similar.

Box-headed Blood Bee?

In the same area I got the first photo of a speckled wood this year.  Really there should be scores of them around by now in dappled woodland areas, instead of the odd one or two I'm actually seeing.

This specimen was already looking a bit worn,

Speckled Wood

Yet another bee mystery turned up in the garden, appearing to be totally black apart from a very short buff tail to the abdomen.

Mystery Bee

I've seen another one since and seemed to notice a faint hint of a stripe on the upper abdomen, making me wonder about buff-tailed bumblebee, which can sometimes lose its colouration.  But then the tail would surely have been more extensive.

Anyway it doesn't ever hang around for long.