Hover Flies.

It was Mrs TD’s fault. She wanted the garden tidying up before the rain came; so there I was, mowing chewing up a very wet lawn. After that, the sun came out and it became rather warm and Herself decided that we should give the hawthorn a hair cut; that was when we noticed a strange bumble bee, a sort of common carder but with a white bum. It was still there when I returned with a camera but decided to be coy, only allowing me time for one shot but not enough to set the camera properly. The picture of it is the extra and needs to be a little sharper. Half a dozen others appeared, or perhaps it was the same one making return visits, by which time we had identified it as a tree bumble bee; a recent addition to our twenty three resident listed species which include a few that are extinct.

Not a million miles away, our marjoram (we think) was covered in numerous species of flies and bees; the larger of the two hover flies in the Blip looks like a surprisingly hairy Eristalis arbustorum with orange spots to mimic a honey bee’s pollen baskets. The little photo-bombing red eyed chap I don’t have a clue about.


It didn't start raining until 6 pm.