Gradually getting to grips with things I'd expect to see in the garden although today's much needed rain will slow down finding much more for now. Caught up with a few more Bumble Bees. This is a queen of the Buff-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus terrestris which shows the buff tail, warming itself on the wall. The workers have a white tip to the tail and are essentially indistinguishable from the group of species now making up what was the White-tailed Bumblebee Bombus lucorum. Much smaller is the Early Bumble Bee Bombus pratorum which by virtue of starting early and being small can have 2 generat ..read more

This amazing weather continues to draw me out of doors into my garden and so the posting of pictures falls behind as usual. Wherever colonies of solitary bees exist there are normally Bee Flies, in this case the Dark-Edged Bee Fly Bombylius major at work flicking eggs onto the soil in the vicinity of nests. The larvae crawl into the next and live as parasitoids. These bees often indicate the presence of a bee colony before the bees themselves are seen These flies are refilling with energy at flowers, hence the unfeasibly long proboscis. Here are a few more species of hymenoptera landin ..read more

A number of insects have landed in front of me during the last few days causing a fair bit of eyebrow raising. The first of these was very interesting as the next group I wanted to work on when I had time was the Sawflies: Symphyta, waistless members of the Hymenoptera whose larvae are plant feeders. A shiny bronze metallic member of this group appeared atop the Cherry Laurel hedge allowing one photograph from a poor angle but enough to stimulate interest. I realised it was probably a member of the Cimbicidae because of its size and clubbed antennae. Fortunately I already had enough keys to ge ..read more

Since it isn't possible to go out and look for stuff now, I thought it would be fun to look in the garden and see what I could find. Most will be pretty run of the mill stuff but, knowing wildlife, I'm sure some surprises will turn up especially if I can do things with groups I've not bothered with much. On a familiar note for me, the nice weather has brought out the Bees and Wasps. In fact as you will see it is already too late for the first brood of some species! This is a female of Fabricius' Nomad Bee (Nomada fabriciana) which is searching the areas of bare earth looking for nests into wh ..read more

We came across this ram's skull on a walk in Nant-y-gleisiad Wood, near Resolfen. The decaying horns were covered in Horn Stalkball (Onygena equina), an ascomycete belonging to a specialised family called the Onygenacea. Both horns were covered completely in a creamy-white mycelium which had given rise to hundreds of stalked fruiting bodies, like little puffballs. In fact it used to be called Horn Puffball although it is not even closely related to the puffballs, which are basidiomycetes. The rounded heads of the young fruiting bodies are white and covered with masses of chlamydospores wh ..read more

Castell du Water pipit at Castell du late afternoon. Kingfisher and green sandpiper also ..read more

Unsurprisingly for the time of year, a Firecrest in the Querus ilex near the mast atop Mumbles Hill ..read more

7 adult whooper swans by the mound at Wernffrwd at high water this am ..read more

The bees started early this year, with a break for the cold snap. My first excursion inland away from Gower found Andrena bicolor working blooms of Tussilago farfara on the hillside opposite Resolven on 26th Feb. Due to the aforementioned cold period, my next excursion was on 6th April to the area around Gellionen Chapel, partly to get a few records in a square (SN705055) where SEWBREC (in their newsletter) say there are no records recently. Bit early for much but I saw Andrena scotica there:and found Andrena clarkella next to the chapel:I decided many years ago, when time permitted, to look ..read more