The Same But Different.

Yes, it's another bee on thistle shot!
Go LARGE.

I so nearly had a great blip lunchtime - during one of the infrequent sunny spells I spotted a butterfly flitting around in an area of long grass around a tree, and it settled on a leaf to sun itself. Brown with a patterning of many yellow spots it was a Speckled Wood, I'm certain. I've rarely seen one of those before, let alone blipped one. So I crept close, trying to grab a macro - it took off - then flew up onto a leaf on one of the lower branches of the tree, too high for me. I gently shook the branch, it took off again - and went even higher on the tree! Despite watching for several minutes for it to fly off, it disappeared from view and I've no idea where it went. Am I gutted or what?

The wind and grey, humid weather today had deterred most insects but on a large, fairly sheltered clump of thistles there were a few bees. I spotted this, one I don't recall seeing before - an Andrena cineraria - a Grey Mining Bee . It partly compensated for missing that Speckled Wood. Determined to blip that bee and no other I spent ages painstakingly following it from flower to flower on the thistles, grabbing a shot whenever the wind eased for a few seconds. The term 'stalking' comes to mind - I'm just glad that bees can't take out a restraining order! lol