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Escape - Osmia bicornis male emerging from its cell - 10th April 2014 Carltom Nottinghamshire. |
April 10th and the very first Mason Bee to break free seen today. This is exactly 10 days before last years emergence here in my Notts garden. By this afternoon a grand total of 3 males are buzzing around both my log and my £3 Morrisons supermarket "bee hotel". Photograph shows emergence of the second bee of the year, the first eluded the camera and left a vice neat hole in its sealed clay entrance. Can't get fresher looking bee than this. Hopefully we'll have a good year as I have about 60-70 holes currently sealed by the bees last year and I 've added a few more holes as after a couple of years the Bees are a little reluctant to use previously used holes, they do eventually but only after the clean holes have been filled first.
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same bee as previous photograph, giving me the eye! |
Now from this blog it is pretty obvious that I'm not the birding type, I like birds, I feed them in my garden and I've even been known to twitch, once for a Great Grey Shrike and more recently a trip onto Budby Heath to catch the Parrot Crossbills, I was surprised at their size, I expected a bird a little smaller. However the pair of birds that have given me most pleasure this year are a couple of Bullfinch. I've fed Sunflower hearts for years in my small back garden and attract the usual garden stuff, but this year has been the first year that I have daily visits from a pair of Bullfinch, photograph of the female attached. Perhaps I'm a little odd but in my eyes the females colours are so subtle as to make it far more attractive than the male. Taken with a macro lens through the window! Not quite sure my missus would be too happy if a spent £5000 on a big telephoto. Still when I can take all my pension as cash rather than an annuity I'll perhaps blow some on the Lamborghini of lens a Nikon 500 mm.
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Bullfinch - Carlton Nottinghamshire 10th April 2014. 105 mm Macro lens through double glazing. |
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