The march of hairy feet

The first time I saw these bees I didn't know what they were.  I saw smaller brown bees and larger black bees in The Alnwick Garden a few years ago and it was only when I got home to look them up I found they were the male and female of the same species, Anthophora plumipes, the hairy-footed flower bee.  At the time the Alnwick population was a complete outlier, 100km or so from the next nearest confirmed population.  In recent years they have been spreading south in Northumberland and recently they were reported in Morpeth, only 15km north of here as the bee flies, so yesterday I went to have a look.  I soon found up to a dozen males flying around the cowslips and primula hybrids in the Turner Garden,  They were patrolling and chasing each other, always on the lookout for a female and occasionally sipping nectar to refuel.  It makes photographing them a challenge but eventually a couple paused for breath to show how the get their name.

Most of the time they were zooming around between the flowers but there was a brief opportunity when they were refuelling.  Note the long proboscis which allows them to use long tubular flowers

When a female arrived it caused great excitement and they hovered close by, hoping to strike lucky, even though she had no interest in them as she was presumably already mated and was busy collecting nectar and pollen.

This male must be a bit short-sighted as he was propositioning a queen red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius).

The females are black with an orange pollen brush on each back leg.

This one has already loaded up with yellow primula pollen.

The female also has a long proboscis to reach the nectar.  It it often cleaned while flying between flowers.

The tongue is even longer and is pushed out through the tube-like proboscis.

There were plenty of other bees about while I was watching, including a garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) the longest-tongued of our bumblebees.

You can see how short the red-tailed bumblebee's tongue is in comparison but she can obviously still reach the nectar.

And this tiny bee which is a male tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva).

And just before I left a female tawny mining bee landed right in front of me, wanting also to have her photo taken.

On the way back to the car, several hundred metres away I saw this.

And near the car park, this.

So hairy-footed flower bees seem quite well established in the town and must have been there for some time.  It is only six years or so since they were first recorded in Northumberland and in that time they have moved 30km south from Alnwick to Morpeth to be only 15km away from here.  If they continue to spread I hope to see them here within a few years.  I have already drilled holes in the walls so they will have somewhere to live and there are plenty of pulmonaria flowers, grape hyacinths and cowslips for them in my garden.

BuzzardCam

Another lucky capture on a trail camera.  After the sparrowhawk and the woodcocks last winter the camera has now recorded a buzzard.  One of the great things about remote monitoring is that the bird / animal is completely unaware that it is being watched and behaves normally.  It would be almost impossible to observe a buzzard like this directly. The video is a bit more heavily cropped than the stills and as a result it is a bit less sharp.

The buzzard stayed in front of the camera for about three minutes but after the clip above it didn't do much.  It stood looking about and then walked up the bank out of shot.  Obviously not having a busy day.

Out and about in March

Not so much out and about really as we have been in lockdown until a few days ago.  When I did get out for a walk in the woods I met a frog coming the other way.  It wasn't in the mood to give way so I had to, after taking a photo on my iPhone.

A surprise sighting in the garden was a male pheasant, the first I have seen since my regular visitor used to come to the door every morning over three years ago.  He was here two days in a row but may not become a regular.

I doubt if I shall see much of the sparrowhawk from now on.  He was here a lot in March but in previous years the sparrowhawk has disappeared at about this time of year, probably to join up with a mate in a chosen breeding territory. This one is still looking very handsome.

I managed to squeeze in my Bumblebee Conservation Trust Bee Walk in the brief warmth on the last day of the month. I saw only 12 bumblebees but of five different species.  Then when I got home there was a garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) in the garden, appropriately enough.  This was also taken on the iPhone.

I heard a chiffchaff in the garden, unusual for here and the first sign of a summer visitor.  I hope the first blackcap will be here soon.  This has been a very disappointing winter for visiting finches.  I haven't seen a brambling or a redpoll but I have recently seen male and female siskins on the feeders.

March felt to me cold, dry and windy, much as March should be, I suppose.  In fact the Met Office data show it was warmer than recent (1981-2010) average.  Perhaps it felt colder because of the wind.  The Met Office maps don't show wind speed.

Making progress with SmallMammalCam

I rebuilt the small mammal box, putting on a larger perspex roof and lining the box with bark, this in the hope that the animals feel more secure and the pictures look more natural.  There is a single small side entrance about 45cm from the camera.  I have tried the box out in the garden and in the local nature reserve and in the first week it has been busy with bank voles, wood mice and common shrews, all of which are keen on free food and enjoy exploring.

Bank voles will often sit and eat in front of the camera.  This one was stocking up, cramming as much as it could into its cheek pouches.

Bank voles don't like sharing.  In the end the paler vole was the one to return and carry on feeding.

Wood mice are mainly nocturnal so they usually show up only in infrared videos.  They are hyperactive and spend most of their time exploring the box.  This one paused for a munch on a mealworm.

It can seem crowded if there are two in the box.

At other times they tolerate each other.

I can recognise several individual mice.  This one is small.

Another is large with notched ears.

This one is missing half an ear and has a lot of scars, presumably from fighting.

Here's another very scarred individual.  I wonder if this was from fighting or if it perhaps escaped from an owl.

This one has a permanently curled tail.

And this one has a short tail.

Common shrews are smaller than mice and voles and can squeeze through tiny spaces.  There wasn't supposed to be a gap there but the shrew found a way through.  It instantly changes shape from thin to round.

And another brief glimpse of a weasel.  The reaction time of the camera is around 0.4s and in that time the weasel has already come right down to this end of the box.  It was gone in a flash so I made the video in slow motion.  After the weasel had gone nothing else visited the box for over four hours, even though the food was still there.  I expect they could smell danger.