Charisma

Isn't he gorgeous? Darkly dangerous, and arrestingly charismatic - like the anti-hero of a Georgette Heyer novel.

I'd better stop this now, before I come over all unnecessary.

I love Wool Carder Bees (in case you hadn't guessed). Not love love - they don't warm my heart in the way Hairy-footed Flower Bees do, or fill me with the kind of admiration I feel for the utterly dedicated parenting of Osmia bicolor females - but they're beautiful and fascinating, and it's always a red-letter day when I spot the first one of the season. They generally turn up around the summer solstice, so I've been checking all the likely places in our garden and the rest of the village for a few days now, and today I hit lucky at Tilly's field. Their top pick, plant-wise, is black horehound (Ballota nigra), which grows along the dry stone wall that borders this field, and today there were two males patrolling the wall, and an indeterminate number of females dodging in and out, feeding on the horehound while trying to avoid being pounced on by the males. One mistimed her escape and had to submit to a brief but ferocious coupling, but I was just a little too far away from this event for good photos. I dare say I'll have other chances to capture images of copulation before their brief season ends, though, because the males are relentless breeding machines and, in contrast to many other solitary bee species, the females will mate throughout their lives. 

Once the black horehound goes over, the Wool Carders will change their allegiance to hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina), both of which I have in my garden, so at that point it should become easier for me to watch them. If I'm lucky I might even get another chance to see one of the females carding, though they tend to be secretive about this activity - probably because they don't want to be interrupted in their work by the apparently insatiable males.

R: C2, D19.