In praise of pollinating insects
The other day I heard a bug fly past my head, and astonished myself by instinctively identifying the sound as belonging neither to a honeybee nor to a bumblebee. As it turns out, it was a wasp! I did not realise until that moment that I could tell bumblebees and honeybees by their buzzes.
Bumblebees and honeybees are very common in my garden, and I take photos of them a lot. Bumblebees are easy to photograph because they are big and slow. Honeybees are easy to photograph because they are calm around humans and don't mind me coming very close to them with my camera.
I've been paying attention to pollinating insects of all kinds recently. The more time I spend in the garden, the more I notice patterns in their behaviour. Bumblebees love nasturtiums, which honeybees hardly touch. When I see leafcutter bees, they are almost always on cornflowers. The flowering chard is much beloved of all kinds of hoverflies. It is wonderful to get to know these insects better than I have done in the past. I marvel at the astonishing variety present just on my tiny patch of the outdoors - I really had no idea!
Every animal which is within the boundary of my garden is a pet in my mind, even though that status may be very temporary in many cases. Here are some interesting pollinating pets I have seen recently:
Patchwork leafcutter bee
Gorytes
Blue mason bee?
Common furrow bee?
Sun fly
European tube wasp
Common carder bumblebee
Some kind of globetail?
Bronze furrow bee?
Common furrow bee?
Thick-legged hoverfly
Some kind of ichneumonid wasp?
Let me know if you think my IDs are wrong. They may very well be.
Shout out also to those insects too fast or too small (mainly hoverflies) to have been caught on camera - I tried and I failed!
