Spotted

I spotted this hoverfly, which Falk calls a Spotted Meliscaeva and Obsidentify calls a Spotted Thintail, down in the wild garden, where I'd risked walking because nothing higher up the garden was letting me get a lens anywhere near it. It's still so boggy in the wild garden that I was sinking into the ground and the water was rising up onto the uppers of my shoes, and so hot that I could feel my legs burning through my jeans. Nothing much, from mosquitoes to alligators, would have surprised me under these conditions, but as it was I found just two types of bee, one of which was a Gwynne's mining bee (Andrena bicolor) and the other a hairy-footed flower bee, and two varieties of hoverfly - this Meliscaeva auricollis, and a Cheilosia pagana.

The hoverflies took my year list to five species, and the mining bee took my bee list to four, but this also moved onto five later in the day, when I walked up to the Community Orchard and saw an Early Bumblebee browsing some cherry plum blossom. The orchard also bumped my bird list by two species - there were numerous Reed Buntings and Yellowhammers hanging around the hedgerow near the feeding station, waiting for me to leave so that they could feed - and that now stands at ninety three.

After lucking out on my three previous visits to the owl field (although Monday's hares were a decent consolation prize) I'd taken an active decision not to drive up there again today, and by the time Hillyblips messaged me to say that I needed to be there it was really too late to be setting out. There was quite a bit of teeth-gnashing in my vicinity later, when I saw her lovely photos, but when it comes to photographing wildlife you just have to accept that some days you're the owl, and some days you're the vole.