Winter active bumblebee

This was a very surprising finding in Northumberland on the last day of November (and 7℃), a foraging bumblebee.  It is a queen buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) collecting pollen and nectar from ivy flowers.  The photos aren't as sharp as I would like but they were taken in shade with a 960mm lens(!) at ISO 4000.

Winter active bumblebees have been observed in the southern part of the country in recent years but I didn't expect to find one this far north.  BWARS, the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society, is running a recording programme to learn more about this behaviour.  All, or almost all, records relate to Bombus terrestris and this map show where sightings have been made.

The BWARS information sheet says that queens start nesting in October and raise workers in November, remaining active throughout the winter.  New males and queens are produced in February.

First winter visitor

Several winter finches visit the garden each year but I was surprised to see this one.  I generally expect to see redpolls and siskins before Christmas each year but I am lucky if I get a single brambling in late winter or early spring.  So this handsome male brambling was a surprise.  He stayed long enough for me to take a photo but may not stick around.  I hope the redpolls and siskins, which are usually more reliable, arrive soon.

Incidentally, the brambling's plumage is another great example of disruptive camouflage.  Although it looks jazzy to us it will be nearly invisible amongst the leaves on the woodland floor.

Return of the sparrowhawk

I have seen this bird in the garden over the past week or two but this was the first time I have seen him sitting on the "sparrowhawk" perch.  It was early morning, dark and wet and the photos were taken through a rain-streaked window.

It is another juvenile male, the third bird in three winters to stake out the feeder in the kitchen garden.  The first one was an adult male who arrived in early January 2017 and stayed on and off until March that year.  Last winter a juvenile male arrived in early December 2017 and again stayed around until March this year.  I am hoping this one will stick around for a while.  If he does, expect more photos.

Feeding the crows

Feeding the crows has now become a regular part of my day.  The first usually appears at around (my) breakfast time and stands on the lawn outside the kitchen window looking hungry.

If I don't notice, or don't react quickly enough it calls me by cawing loudly until I do.

When I open the back door it retreats few steps and watches while I throw out a handful of peanuts.  As soon as the door is closed it trots across to the food but will run or even fly to get there first if there are other crows around.

Then it is a case of trying to lick up as many peanuts as possible in one go.

Often there are two crows, which I assume to be a pair.

Sometimes there are four but two of them are much more wary.  They are full grown but have smaller beaks and sometimes still beg for food (and are ignored) so I think they must be this year's young.  I don't know what the crows get up to when I am not at home but they are often sitting on the roof watching and waiting when I go out and when I return.

Once it is dark and the crows have disappeared it is time to put out more peanuts for the foxes.

Short-tailed woodpecker

This woodpecker has been hanging around the feeders for the past few days.  I don't know how it happened but she has lost her tail.  She seems otherwise quite healthy but it must be quite a handicap as woodpeckers use their tail feathers as support when they sit on trees.  Flying must be tricky as well.  I think it must be the result of some sort of injury because moulting should be over by now and even then I expect tail feathers are normally moulted one at a time. The tail will probably grow back but she might have to rely on the feeders until it does.

Starling murmuration

The starling murmuration has returned to my local nature reserve this autumn and I have been to watch four times in the last three weeks.  Each time I tried to pick a bright evening without much wind but, even then, their behaviour is a bit different from last year and the whole show is a bit less well coordinated this time.  The early arrivals do well and put on a good show.

The next groups are even larger and they all blend into one.

When they fly closer to or over the hide they fill the sky.

The starlings go down into the reed beds after displaying when only half of them have arrived.  They seem to pour out of the sky.

All the later arrivals then go straight down with further display.

The experts' assessment is that there are probably about 20,000 birds, a little fewer than last year and with less extravagant shapes.  If they waited until they had all arrived before diving into the reed bed the show would be completely spectacular but even so it is well worth watching.  They are harassed every time by a pair of sparrowhawks, as they were last year, so this may have modified their behaviour.

Last year the numbers built up over several weeks but then they moved on - probably because their weight had done so much damage to the reeds that there was no longer room for them all to roost.  I expect the same will happen this year and they will move on to somewhere else soon.

Red mason bee report

It is the time of year for tidying up and taking stock.  I have brought in the bee house in for the winter and I took the opportunity of seeing what the red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) have been up to.  The photo above shows a male bee searching for a newly emerged female last spring.  One very industrious female bee moved into the top row of the observation wing and completed 15 cells.  Here are the first three cells, each containing an egg and a pile of pollen for the larva to eat.

The bee lays female eggs first, at the back of the nest, and males towards the front because the males emerge first in spring.  Males are smaller so their cocoons and cells are also smaller.  I think this nest originally had eight females and seven males although the front few males were taken by a bird - probably a woodpecker - but the others survived.  This is the view before I removed the perspex.

Without the perspex I can use the flash for a clearer photo.  The repairs a bit lower down were done after previous woodpecker damage.

These two cells contain red mason bee cocoons.

These two have been parasitised, probably by the cleptoparasitic fly Cacoxenus indagator.  Inside the frass in each cell were several small white maggots.  I expect the larvae overwinter and pupate into flies in the spring.

I prefer bees to flies so I took the opportunity of clearing out the parasitised cells.  I left all the cocoons in place so in order to escape in the spring the bees will have to chew through the mud walls as well as their cocoons.  This might slow them down a bit and give me a better opportunity to video and/or photograph their escape.

It also allows a closer look at the cell walls made from mud (hence the name, mason bee).

This year I also tried out some cardboard tubes with paper liners.

Here is a photo from May showing a female bee inspecting a the tubes.

I think only one tube was used - the yellow staining is from pollen.

When I opened the paper liner I found three mason bee cocoons and two unused pollen pellets.  No parasites in this one.

Several raspberry canes in the bee house were used as well.

I opened these two to have a look inside.  Usually the bee starts building at the far end but one here seems to have started half way along.  Her nest contained three cocoons and one parasitised cell.  The other one was completely parasitised (and so was discarded). 

Other bees used holes in the wall of the house, holes in dead tree trunks and holes drilled in wood blocks in the bee house but obviously I can't investigate those.  This was in the bee house in spring.

It was an interesting spring this year because by the time the mason bees emerged in early May it was already warm and there was a very short interval between the first males and first females.  I think the female bees got on with nest building very early, perhaps giving the Cacoxenus flies less time to react.  Certainly the parasitisation rate seems lower than I have seen before.  With luck there will be more red mason bees than ever next year.