Today...

...as I sat on my swing doing some paperwork a bee flew towards me, and landed on my bare leg. I thought he would take straight off and fly away. But he didn't.

The bee proceeded to groom itself. The most intensive immaculate grooming a bee could ever do. For the whole while, it's back stinger was constantly twitching. I was just waiting for it to fly away.

But it didn't. It began the whole grooming process again from its tongue (is that called a mandible?) to every one of its legs, then its belly, and then on to its wings...underneath and on top...then over to its head, its face.

Now it is going to fly off I thought...but no, it actually began all over again. In the meantime I must have taken a few hundred photos with my iPad. I was a bit worried I might drop the iPad on the poor little bee...

By this time I am resigned to this little bee being there on my leg awhile. He had landed in the same place as the last two butterflies who stayed on my leg for a long while.

So I brought up a bee identification chart on my iPad. It didn't take long to ID it as Leaf Cutter bee. But was it male or female? I needed to see its underside...so I was trying to angle the iPad to take pics of its belly. So I finally discover it is a female!!!

The ID guide tells me that the sting of this bee is less painful than other bees, but not to worry because it gives a bite first as a warning...

Then it began buzzing...oops...but it took off and buzzed past me to the flowering bush in front of me.

Experimenting again with the very small containers to hold the paint to do my flow painting. Still using WD 40. So, this is my painting for today for my challenge to myself of a pic every day in 2017.

Now, back to paperwork...