Scout Scar: linnet and red-tailed bumblebee

Red-tailed bumblebee on meadow-crane'sbill

The red-tailed bumblebee is small and  beautiful.  In this wet July I’m  photographing bees when the sun shines. I like the way the stigma of meadow crane’s-bill shows in  colour, then casts its shadow on the veined petal.  After overnight rain I thought if there were butterflies they’d be slow to warm up.  I found a common blue on a plantain seed head and it stayed to be photographed. I couldn’t imagine what could go wrong.  I had time to create the shot I wanted, my butterfly against a blue sky.  Home with some fifty pictures.  I couldn’t wait to see them on computer screen. I had great plans for them.  So----

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The common blue butterfly looked washed-out.  Wear and tear damages them, and their colour fades.  At least the photo showed the insect well, but a fresh butterfly is  stunning.  A flock of linnet called overhead and settled in juniper bushes. Today, I didn't see the male with his crimson breast but saw this charming family including juveniles. The tiny beak and forked tail is distinctive. Listening to linnet calling to each other is rather like being in Yeat's poem The Lake of Inisfree. With bees loud about the thistles and grasshoppers chirruping.
I'm having fun taking macro images of flowers, then enlarging them to study their intricate and beautiful design, their reproductive parts. There are seasonal motifs and right now lady's bedstraw shows in profusion, with its honey-scented flowers.
On this red-tailed bumblebee the corbiculae are visible, the pollen baskets on her hind legs where she stores pollen to take it back to the hive.

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