Toft Churchyard 27 March: Bee-flies!

First Bee-flies seen yesterday - quite late compared with other years. These two were newly emerged from their burrows and took a time to fly off. Their appearance no doubt linked to more bee species appearing. My favourite image is the very delicate lacewing inside a daffodil.

Paxton Meadow Trail Survey

Although windy and quite damp early on, later sunshine produced a few bee species - Colletes cunicularis and Adrena clarkella were present plus a couple of new hoverflies Syrphus torvus and Cheilosia grossa. The Red mite was an interesting find in the leaf litter

Toft Churchyard 24 March

I am trying to find a good way of keeping visual plus species detail records of the survey that I am doing of the insect and other invertebrate etc life in Toft Churchyard this year. So far this is the best of have been able to come up with that doesn't involve any steps outside Lightroom which I use for cataloguing

Pasque Flowers Beginning at Royston Heath

The Pasque flowers are just beginning to flower - a bit later than some years but will probably be best around Easter as their name suggests. They are very short so quite a challenge to photograph plus a stiff breeze today. Most are Focus stacks using Fuji X100V and Raynox 250 close-up lens. I find this a very useful high quality combination for flower photography. We found one very small bee - a Lasioglossum species

Churchyard Survey Toft 20/03/23

Delighted to record the first Hairy-footed Flower bees and the solitary bee Andrena bicolor (both males) at Toft Churchyard yesterday, along with a 7-spot ladybird and a very small Ichneumon wasp. There also some very attractive toadstool - Scurfy Twiglet Tubaria furfuracea blending in perfectly with the scales from the Cypress Cedar.