If I were to choose one plant to attract bumblebees into the garden it would be viper's bugloss (Echium vulgare). It is a native wild flower in the borage family and happily grows in gardens. It is biennial and seeds itself around in the right conditions - in my garden the flower spikes are over 1m tall. Unlike many flowers, Echium vulgare produces nectar throughout the day and the nectar is protected in hot or rainy weather, producing a very reliable nectar source over many weeks.
In the past three weeks I have seen 12 species of bee on the viper's bugloss, including all seven common bumblebee species. One of my favourites and the easiest to recognise is the red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius). It's colours go well with the blue flowers.
The male red-tailed bumblebee has a yellow collar and a yellow moustache.
This is another easily-identified bee, a common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum).
Nearly all the bumblebees I saw were only interested in nectar but several early bumblebees (Bombus pratorum) were collecting pollen, as you can see from the blue pollen in the pollen basket on this bee's hind leg.
Although she did take a few sips of nectar as well.
The garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) has a very long tongue. This one is a worker.
This is a queen buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). Her short tongue is less than half the length of the tongue in a garden bumblebee.
This is a white-tailed bumblebee queen (Bombus lucorum), another short-tongued species.
The male white-tailed bumblebee has a broad yellow collar and a yellow moustache.
Buff-tailed and white-tailed workers are difficult to distinguish in the field. This one (whichever it is) has been collecting pollen from a different flower but has stopped by for some nectar.
Bumblebees are often difficult to photograph but some are easily recognised even with their heads deep in the flowers. This is a tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum).
Tree bumblebees usually have an orange/brown thorax, black middle and white tail, as above, but in some the thorax is very dark.
And a bumblebee with a difference. This is a gypsy cuckoo bumblebee (Bombus bohemicus). It has dark wings and no pollen basket on its hind leg. This bee moves more slowly around the flowers and drinks for longer at each one. It has a short tongue and I see it more often on flat open flowers.
Solitary bees like viper's bugloss as well. Here is a rather faded female red mason bee (Osmia bicornis).
And this is a very old male red mason bee. He has lost most of his fur and all of his red colour. I think he tried cutting his own hair during the lockdown.
A female patchwork leafcutter bee (Megachile centuncularis) visited the flowers as well.
A real treat was a visit from a male fork-tailed flower bee (Anthophora furcata). I didn't see a female this year.
And last but not least, a honey bee (Apis mellifera). It is interesting that honey bees are more interested in collecting pollen than nectar and spend their time on the anthers and not in the flowers.
I have also noticed a lot of blue pollen in the hives. (If you look carefully at the cells towards the top left corner each contains a tiny honey bee egg. The shiny cells on the right contain nectar.)
The bees tend to store pollen from different flowers separately in different cells, although it doesn't always work out that way. In this photo you can see individual blue pollen pellets (towards bottom left and top right) which haven't yet been pressed into the rest of the pollen.
Viper's bugloss is attractive to other insects such as butterflies, which drink the nectar
and hoverflies which eat the pollen.
Viper's bugloss gets its strange name from the 16th century Doctrine of Signatures which held that herbs resembling human body parts, animals or other objects could be used to guide treatment of various ailments. Viper's bugloss was thought to look like a snake (although I can't see the resemblance) and was recommended for treatment of adder bites. The bugloss part of its name means ox tongue and refers to the appearance of the leaves. Echium comes from the Greek word for viper and vulgare means common.
This will probably be the last current post from the fox cub trail camera. The cubs are spending less and less time near the den as they wander farther afield. The parents show up on the camera only briefly as they trot past bringing a vole or some other tasty treat for the cubs. And the vegetation is getting taller which makes it harder to find a position where the camera can get a clear view. To tempt the cubs to linger in front of the camera I left a few treats. Here a cub is realising how much it likes biscuits, and anxiously looking round in case another cub turns up.
When there is more food than it can cope with in one go it collects it up and takes it off to hide it, behaviour known as caching, in the hope that none of the others will find it.
This last clip is the only time in the last couple of weeks I have seen two cubs together, and even then they were keeping 2m apart!
I see these little wasps quite often on sunny days at this time of year. They are very small and move fast so they are difficult to photograph but even they stop for breath occasionally. This is a ruby-tailed wasp, probably Chrysis ignita, the commonest of several similar species. It has a shiny exoskeleton as armour and even the female has no sting.
The ruby-tailed wasp is a kleptoparasite, laying its eggs in the nests of solitary wasps, particularly Ancistrocerus spp. While I was watching it I saw what I think is an Ancistrocerus wasp, the host species.
Ruby-tailed wasps also parasitise solitary bees. I saw one near the leafcutter bee nest a couple of weeks ago but it took no interest in the nest.
This is the vixen who visits the garden every night. She is often here first and gets to eat any tasty treats that are a bit more exciting than just dog biscuits. She is on alert as she approaches the food, mainly concerned about other foxes or late dog-walkers rather than being near the house.
Here the dog has arrived. She greeted him with a snarl to discourage him from getting too close. Note the tail curl which means don't even think about stealing my dinner.
Here the two of them are observing social distancing, filmed through the kitchen window on my iPhone. The vixen is on the right.
Even though she can't see me the vixen is much more likely to look towards the camera, something the dog rarely does. Perhaps she just likes having her photo taken.
Her cubs will be weaned by now but I haven't yet seen one in the garden. I hope they will be here soon.
This is the dog fox that visits the garden every night. He is easy to recognise as he is slimmer and looks longer-legged than his mate, although they are the same height shoulder to shoulder.
He also has a torn right ear and a slimmer face than the vixen.
I am sure he is a different animal from last year's dog who was greyer and was very relaxed - he regularly lay down to eat. This fox is wary as he approaches the food outside the back door, more concerned about other foxes and late dog-walkers than me or the house. He stops to look and scent the air before coming closer.
A few nights ago he turned up in the rain, looking very agitated and constantly looking around for danger. When he turned round I could see he had two fresh wounds under his chin.
Perhaps this was from a fight with a dog or another fox, or perhaps an injury from barbed wire, but he was certainly upset. He gobbled some biscuits for a few minutes and then trotted away. Two nights later he was back to his normal self, with no sign of injury, and was happy to pose for a few portraits.
He certainly is a handsome devil, and I think he knows it.
