Corolla with guide-lines leading bees to pollen and nectar on anther and stamens. The air is loud with bees flying to the next white flowers of lace-cap hydrangea. Spurts of bee-sonification transmit requests for nectar, signalling flowers to prepare a welcome. The lace-cap hydrangea trembles and hums with bees. Sheen on bee wings caught in sunlight, membranous wings of the Hymenoptera. Hairs on head, thorax and abdomen, dusted with mites and pollen brushed over bees as they delve into flowers. Legs jointed and hairy, tarsus claws lock onto flower stems. Amongst the hairs, small movable plates of chitin covered in a layer of wax, like polished armour: the bees’ exoskeleton.
They forage amongst cranesbill flowers. And fox and cubs, an orange hawkweed colour of fox fur. There are no weeds, all flowers are welcome in a wildlife garden, astir with life as sunlight falls on flowers refreshed by rain. Swifts are shrill, glinting silver to black as sunlight catches them. Young birds cheep from the foliage. Let nature thrive and with each spring will come renewal and surprise. The flora of limestone grassland, dormant in the soil seed bank, springs surprises for a flower-rich lawn in a garden free from herbicides and pesticides. A joyful resurrection. Today the first fragrant orchid appears. There’s common spotted orchid and cowslip seed heads. Now it the time of buttercups. Vetches are soon to flower, stems white with cuckoo spit. This spring, we’re asked to note and report its occurrence. Frog hopper larvae in their protective froth of bubble-wrap. Rain and unsettled weather, louring cloud with sunny interludes. Rain drops stand proud on alchemilla leaves. Meniscus, surface tension made visible in spheres of water droplets. A blob of water in the cusp of a leaf wobbles within its meniscus.
Peaceful amongst bee-loud flowers, I think of the poet Yeats yearning for peace ‘ dropping slow from the veils of the morning ‘ in a bee-loud glade on the Isle of Inisfree.
Peaceful until I feel a bee's sting in my thigh, and pulses of venom. Through fabric and into flesh, the bee cannot retract its barbed sting, cannot withdraw. My firtst bee sting, remarkable after all my close photographic encounters. Padding across my study in bare feet, I almost step onto the next bee crawling over the carpet. I think the weather takes a toll on foraging bees. All week it's cloudy and overcast, rain never away. And there's a blustery wind.
Peaceful until I feel a bee's sting in my thigh, and pulses of venom. Through fabric and into flesh, the bee cannot retract its barbed sting, cannot withdraw. My firtst bee sting, remarkable after all my close photographic encounters. Padding across my study in bare feet, I almost step onto the next bee crawling over the carpet. I think the weather takes a toll on foraging bees. All week it's cloudy and overcast, rain never away. And there's a blustery wind.
By 13th June the River Kent is flowing fast, most perching stones mid-stream and some riverside rocks submerged. Grey wagtail are nesting in the riverbank. A mallard calls her brood but the current it taking them downstream. A while later I find them safe on a bank of flowers. No sign of either goosander family. House martins feed low over the river, their white rumps flashing.
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