RXwildlife Sightings

With apologies for those who might feel these posts are being dominated by bumblebees at the moment, last week Pete Akers and I undertook timed monitoring walks on the RSPB reserve last week.  To date we have not monitored the fields in June, but this has commenced this year because short haired bumblebee could be flying now, if the species is re-introduced.

By far the most abundant bumblebee was the red tailed bumblebee Bombus lapidarius (see Sam’s photo below), which was clearly benefitting from the large amounts of bird’s-foot trefoil Lotus corniculatus on the reserve at that time.  The photo below shows this plant with viper’s bugloss Echium vulgare, on the damp margin of one of the gravel pits at Christmas Dell

Also growing along these gravel pit margins were pyramidal orchids Anacamptis pyramidalis Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing the bumblebee theme, today I carried out the second of a series of transect walks around Harbour Farm. The majority of individuals belonged to the White-tailed/Buff-tailed Bumblebee pair (workers of these species are very hard to tell apart), followed by Red-tailed Bumblebee, and finally, and the highlights, two Brown-banded/Moss Carder Bees (another species pair which are difficult to tell apart in the field) and a definite Brown-banded Carder Bee (below, netted and examined with reversed binoculars!). This species, in common with several bumblebees, has undergone a massive reduction in range in the last 100 years, and is now largely confined to coastal areas of southern Britain.

Brown-banded Carder Bee on Red Clover

Highlights from Castle Water yesterday Bittern, 5 Little Ringed Plover, Green Sandpiper, Greenshank and 4 Hobby. Butterflies on the wing included Large and Small Skipper, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Heath and Common Blue. Also of interest a huge patch of flowering Biting Stonecrop (Sedum acre) attracted good numbers of Red-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius).