Cambridge Botanic Gardens 2

 A few more images from our visit to the Gardens on Saturday including my first Bees of the year busy collecting from Winter Honeysuckle which is in full bloom. In the wooded areas some very impressive thorns and the plasmodium of a slime mould showing how wet it had been prior to our visit.

Wet Insects at RSPB Sandy

We hoped for a fine sunny day to photograph solitary bees, dragonflies and butterflies in RSPB Sandy's grounds but had light rain most of the day. However, we found plenty of interesting subjects  covered with rain droplets, including this Common Wasp, Hairy Shieldbug and Green-eyed Flowerbee sleeping attached to a twig by its mandible.

Life on Comfrey and Alkanet

The Alkanet and White Comfrey are in full bloom in the garden and provide home and food to a very large variety of species. Here are a few. The Rhingia rostrata has very impressive mouthparts for slurping up nectar!

Bugs, Bees, Beetle and Butterfly

As the cooler moist air arrived yesterday afternoon, a lot of insects became active especially various leaf bugs - some new to my list for the garden!!. Still lots of Bees and Wasp species plus a very small beetle, first Comma butterfly and a large number of Hoverflies!

Toft Bees Waking Up

Quite a variety of species of bees were on the wing today in the garden and churchyard. This very smart Orange-tailed Mining Bee was sunning itself in the garden. The most numerous were the Ashy Mining Bee males all flying around and fighting waiting for the slightly later emergence of the female.