Look What We Saw

[BryanW]

Saw two Swallowtails last Tuesday about lunch time at How Hill in the cottage garden behind the cottage.  Also saw another pair on the Nature Trail at How Hill on Thursday but too distant to photograph.  This sighting made up for the rain.

 

An eventful week, I will be doing a write up in the next week or so and a video.

[Gretzky]

Fantasic, never seen one, its on my list managed to cross off a Bittern last year hopfully will see one this summer, if it ever arrives

[Wildfuzz]

I have a nest of tree bees in a birdhouse, hadn't heard of these apparently they are an invasive species, non aggressive. The nest holds about 50 bees and around the end of August the newly hatched queens emerge, mate, then fly off and start again, whilst the hard working males pop their clogs..........

[marshman]

I think "invasive" might be a bit harsh!! I tend to regard "invasive" as doing harm but I think the evidence as to that is pretty inconclusive.

They are certainly "newish" but I suspect it may be due to climate change rather than anything else. There is plenty of evidence in our birds that such a trend is developing, and it will extend to insects as well.

I would look upon it as an additional pollinator until it stings you, if indeed it can!

[Wildfuzz]

No the males have no sting, the below which was emailed to me from the Tree Bee society is interesting (well if you like bees)

The type of Bee you have is a Tree Bee, Bombus Hypnorum. In late February/early March of this year, the Queen will have come out of winter hibernation and found a nesting site which happens to be in your bird box! There she will build a small nest, about the size of your hands cupped together, and will lay eggs to bring up new Queens, foragers and males. Each nest contains around only 50 bees. You may start to see some activity on the outside in a few weeks – this isn’t the bees swarming and is actually stingless males waiting outside the nest for the new virgin Queens to fly out on a mating flight. It looks aggressive, but isn’t.

 

Around August/September when the newly mated Queen bees leave their nest and hibernate underground for the winter, the rest of the colony will gradually die off. The males are usually the first to leave and die off, as usually they will have just mated and after this they die. Any other foragers in the nest will wait until the Queens leave, then will leave and die off themselves. The nest doesn’t contain honey or wax like in a Honeybee nest and will just break down naturally and leave nothing behind.

 

 

[JennyMorgan]

Massive slugs the size of savaloys are decimating our garden and inhabiting the river banks, I kid you not. If you have a slug allergy then be warned, huge great things, and you don't hear them coming!

On top of that I have seen an adder on the banks of Oulton Broad, that is a first for me. Grass snakes are as common on the Broads as Yorkshiremen but until the other day I had never seen an adder in the area.

[Viking23]

Perhaps the adders are multiplying.

However ideas about that are divided lol

Lets not let this post subtract from the original thread.

lol

[JennyMorgan]

I had rather hoped that it might add something

[CaptainJoshie]

Well you know what they say....

A(der) + B(ee) = S(wallowtail) 

Sorry but couldn't resist .

John

[BroadScot]

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

Massive slugs the size of savaloys are decimating our garden and inhabiting the river banks, I kid you not. If you have a slug allergy then be warned, huge great things, and you don't hear them coming!

On top of that I have seen an adder on the banks of Oulton Broad, that is a first for me. Grass snakes are as common on the Broads as Yorkshiremen but until the other day I had never seen an adder in the area.

The Isle of Arran has many Adders, mostly on Lamlash Golf Course! Treat with care.

Iain

[Warp]

9 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Massive slugs the size of savaloys are decimating our garden and inhabiting the river banks, I kid you not. If you have a slug allergy then be warned, huge great things, and you don't hear them coming!

On top of that I have seen an adder on the banks of Oulton Broad, that is a first for me. Grass snakes are as common on the Broads as Yorkshiremen but until the other day I had never seen an adder in the area.

I saw a nature (bird) watch special the other day based in Norfolk where they went on at length about how kids can get involved with counting grass snakes and how you can pick them up (without controlling their heads) and that’s ok…

Then they added on a bit about how you can attract adders by leaving something out that warms up in the sun and said how you can clearly see the difference between adders and grass snakes and you’d never mistake one for the other. They then completely failed to mention that it might not be such a good idea to pick adders up…