Forum Topic

A fine bumble bee visiting this afternoon

In fact seen quite a lot of insects: bees, butterflies, hover flies, ladybirds, etc this year:https://www.flickr.com/gp/m-j-i/2hny3p

Michael Ixer ● 1698d30 Comments

https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/identification-tips/It wasn't until I was photographing them several years ago that I really looked hard at them and started noticing all the different stripes and different coloured tails (known as bumblebee bums eg white or rust bummed bumblebee etc) in our elementary identification.Some of them now overwinter - hence the need for plants that flower at different times of the year.

Philippa Bond ● 1690d

I have!  Just the one.  I was photographing some plants in a very fine garden in Surrey several years ago when I suddenly realised that I was seeing something rather interesting but gruesome.  It was only because I was using my old camera with the telephoto that I realised that in the centre of the flower I was concentrating on was a camouflaged ambusher.That year in that same garden in Spring in apple blossom I also met the first and only bee fly that I've ever seen.  So then I spent ages photographing that.  Another one I was interested enough to look up and identify but was then rather put off by its lifecycle.

Philippa Bond ● 1691d

Wow. Don't think I've seen one of those spiders before.

Michael Ixer ● 1691d

We see goldfinches every day in West Putney (attracted by the bird table in the garden).Also flocks of ring necked parakeets.But I'd never seen a White Crab Flower Spider until last week:https://www.benuk.net/White_Crab_Flower_Spider.html

Edward Thompson ● 1691d

Sorry to put this back to the top. But very strange after I was saying, about people trying to get rid of plastic, but every shop has perspex as screens. It was on This Morning program today about all the plastic in shops and does it really stop people getting the virus.

Barbara Stevens ● 1691d

Barbara we can reduce unnecessary plastic.  A lot is used in the medical world - I think I'd call that necessary but not all the packaging.  Plastic holds coronavirus longer than some other materials but I suppose it means you can get in and out of a supermarket faster.  Next month is Plastic-Free July where you can try looking for alternatives.I couldn't agree more about plastic grass in gardens.  There are lots of different types of grass with different tolerances - it would be good to see more about alternatives.  Plastic grass, decking, paving and concreting over gardens - including all those front gardens covered completely so that nothing grows at all is  a problem for sudden flash flooding as well as a loss of food and habitat for pollinating insects and for birds.I'm sorry to not have seen that great advert from the Putney Society for their front gardens competition again this year.  :(I'd recommend the National Gardens Scheme to see lovely gardens. www.ngs.org.uk  (and tea and a piece of cake is another bonus)!

Philippa Bond ● 1696d

I know we are on about gardens, but how can we ban plastic, all the Supermarkets and shops are now covered in it perspex screens everywhere. I thought we were meant to cut down on plastic. Everything that's meant to be done isn't. what about electric scooters everybody nearly everybody thinks they are dangerous. Oh but of course now we have electric scooters, madness. I get fed up cutting my grass in the back garden, but I wouldn't  have plastic grass.

Barbara Stevens ● 1696d

Astroturf - please god ban it, isn't there enough plastic in the world without covering your garden in it??

Matt Palmer ● 1696d

"The only thing I'm not sure about in gardens is astroturf: don't the poor old worms bash their heads trying to come up when it rains ..."Yes! Ban it, worms' lives matter!

Sue Hammond ● 1697d

Oh dear. I was trying to start a non contentious thread. Martine's flowers do look very pretty. Perhaps we need to agree that all gardens with flowers that insects can pollinate are good? Here's another bumblebee (one of many) from the well tended and planned Russell Square Gardens seen on today's visit to the BM:https://www.flickr.com/gp/m-j-i/44n97AOne of our neighbours in East Putney was pleasantly surprised to see a goldfinch in his garden this week.The only thing I'm not sure about in gardens is astroturf: don't the poor old worms bash their heads trying to come up when it rains ...

Michael Ixer ● 1697d

Well Martine peonies just happen to be one of my most favourite garden plants.  I watch out for them to push their bare ugly red claw-like shoots through the earth in the spring every year, the leaves to unfurl and then watch for the musket ball buds to form and grow fatter and then explode in colour.  It is a shame they don't last longer but then if they did I suppose we might not enjoy them quite so much. love to watch how the outdoors changes throughout the year.  I But I also particularly love drifts of forget-me-nots and the lovely scarlet pimpernel which grows over the front doorstep of my old home.Now the limes are in flower I'll start searching for ladybird larvae on the underside of the leaves.  There are so many different ones.  And as for iridescent beetles - they are just stunning:https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/uk-beetles-british-most-spectacular-and-beautiful.html

Philippa Bond ● 1697d

Thank you for the kind words about the flowers in my garden.  If you love gardening, then you will know we are at the peak of the gardening year.  Paeonies are just beautiful and Bowl of Beauty is, imo, like a child’s drawing of a flower. Sorry Jonathan, but I don’t agree.  There is no room for flowering weeds in the garden.  What this means is that they will take over and you will end up with a garden full of weeds, instead of having gorgeous flowers. I’d like to add, that everyone should once in their life go to the Chelsea Flower Show. You don’t even have to like gardening to enjoy the beauty and scent of the flowers.  I hope it will re-open again next year.  It is a simple pleasure.

Martine Guy ● 1697d

Yes Martine lovely, especially after you wait all winter for them then to bloom.

Barbara Stevens ● 1697d

Matt, rewilding in Putney!  Love it!Martine, those are lovely peonies. Shouldn’t there be room for both peonies and flowering weeds in the same garden?  Anyway, count the goldfinches, incidentally now doing rather better in local gardens than chaffinches and greenfinches. If I’m lucky our local robin shows up when I’m fighting the weeds but he (or she) is only after any worms or creepy crawlies I disturb.

Jonathan Callaway ● 1697d

Beautiful Martine.

Sue Hammond ● 1697d

Absolutely beautiful Martine,  peonies are such lovely blooms.  Thank goodness for our gardens.

Robert Wheeler ● 1697d

The paeonies are in bloom and that is Bowl of Beauty in my garden, a flower that truly lives up to its name.  

Martine Guy ● 1697d

Each to their own, Philippa, and if you want to fill your garden with weeds that’s up to you.  I like beautiful or pretty flowers.

Martine Guy ● 1697d

Worms come to the top of the ground when it has rained.The definition of a weed is a plant that is growing out of place.  So if you allow it to grow it is not out of place! I've got a lovely photo of violets growing in the gutter on the yellow lines.  I'd call those wild flowers!  I love it when plants start making their way out of gardens through gates - I've photographed some lovely multi-coloured snapdragons doing that and some bright blue grape hyacinths.So you've no need to worry about them unless they are ones that cause a real problem.  Since the swallows and swifts and martins catch their food whilst on the wing there need to be a lot of flying insects!  Apparently they can catch 700+ each and they stay in the air all day.  It seems they are also good at catching individual rain drops too.I was out walking in the rain in a park the other day and it was a completely different world to the one with hot sun and more people.  I stopped in the middle of the path as there was a goldfinch which kept on chirping and diving down to land on a dandelion clock stalk knocking it over and then reaching to pull out the seeds.  With a heavily weeded garden that would not have been there.

Philippa Bond ● 1697d

There’s no way I’m not mowing the lawn.  I have plenty of insects in the garden because I have lots of flowers.  
Also I have noticed the birds like to look for worms in the lawn, after it has been mown.

Martine Guy ● 1698d

No I can't see any good in wasps at all, they scare me.

Sue Hammond ● 1698d

And a link on wasps from Buglifehttps://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/common-wasp/

Michael Ixer ● 1698d

Thanks, Sue. I think wasps have been rehabilitated these days. They are also pollinators, which I hadn't realise until recently. Perhaps think of them as insects with attitude? 😸

Michael Ixer ● 1698d

Matt, you can pretend that you are cultivating your own mini wild meadow. They are very trendy ...

Sue Hammond ● 1698d

Matt, just tell your neighbours your doing it for ecological reasons to save the world 🙂 One person's weed is another's beautiful flower - or food?

Michael Ixer ● 1698d

The lazy part of me needed no persuasion to do no mow may in our back garden, then I hurt my back and it's gone into June...I was going to crack down on it all yesterday but I walked down though the knee height grass to see how bad it was. There are bundles of little flowers (ok they might be weeds, i have no idea) all over the place, with bees and butterflies aplenty. Even scared off a pair of goldfinches which were happily muching on a great big weed stem. Just a mass of very busy insect life going on down there.So in the end i couldnt bring myself to do it (yet). I'm sure my neigbours may complain at some point but if they do i might lure them in, i reckon there may be tigers in there too... ;)

Matt Palmer ● 1698d

Great photos Michael.  I welcome lovely furry bumble bees and there have been plenty of them enjoying my bottle brush this week.😺 I wish the evil wasps would sod off.🙀

Sue Hammond ● 1698d

Excellent!!!  Congratulations to your wife!We have a few insect friendly plants.  Many bees and, sadly, house flies!  But ladybirds have not visited yet and butterflies - I keep looking!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1698d

Ivonne, my wife's seen a couple of ladybirds and there's been several butterflies, not all cabbage whites plus there's been lots of bees and various types of flies - from hover, green ... to house! That's in East Putney, it's probably helped by my wife's insect friendly planting strategy 🙂

Michael Ixer ● 1698d

What a lovely bee!  We have not seen ladybirds or butterflies yet.  Perhaps they all prefer the Heath!  Can't say that I blame them!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1698d