Profusion of pollen

After yesterday's admonition to myself, to try harder, I have been running around the garden in the late afternoon sunshine, snapping insects. The weather was so wet and windy all last night and this morning that I kept my head down inside. Helena returned home rather unwell so I have been checking on her too.

The rain finally stopped, then the clouds steadily withdrew, allowing the sun to warm us up. All the flowers were buzzing with countless different insects, so I tried a variety of camera settings to see what happens. I particularly wanted to catch bees in flight and I ended up chasing them around the different flowering plants. I was quite pleased with some of the pictures, and found that by staying by one plant for minutes at a time, to see which insects came flying by, I started to notice what was attractive to which species. I have very little knowledge of botany or insects, but I must try to find out the names for what I have seen today.

The wind had not gone away however, often gusting so hard that as an insect made its landing approach the target would move inches in a fraction of a second. I saw happily feeding hover flies suddenly moved on by another flying marauder who wanted its patch. At one point I was trying to get close to a big bee which was at a flower rather deep in the undergrowth. I set the camera to record continuously and was a bio shocked when I saw the the viewfinder that a butterfly had taken off, having been disturbed by the bee. Sadly the shot wasn't sharp although I managed to get both the insects in the frame, within inches of each other, both in flight.

I also found a wonderful moth perched on the off-white roughly rendered back wall, so well camouflaged I didn't spot it at first. Birds were flying and singing songs of praise to something. A delightful small bird perched on the chimney pot and pretended it was a Blackbird singing from the highest point. It sounded like a Skylark, but when I got closer to it after it flew to a telephone line, I saw it was a Goldfinch. When I made my whistling noises it stopped singing briefly and as if in acknowledgement it looked down at me, which was rather sweet.

But the winning shot today was this moment, when the bee was approaching a food source. It just beat a massive bee which was completely covered in pollen as it writhed around the centre of a beautiful large white Hollyhock. But it wasn't in flight which I had set as my target for the day.