Ento Photo File

A quick walk around Prince of Wales Park this morning produced honeybees and several bumblebee species including Red-tailed Bombus lapidarius, White-tailed B.lucorum, Buff-tailed B.terrestris and Garden B.hortorum. There were also a couple of Tawny Mining Bee queens on the Bilberry.

Just had it confirmed that the Cricket nymph I photographed was a Roesel's Bush-cricket which is a first for me.

As of 10th June the Red Mason Bees Osmia rufa have completed 14 tubes.

Here are a few pics of my trip down to Oaken Wood (Grid Ref SU9933) on the Surrey/Sussex border from a couple of weeks ago. Although it was cloudy, this site never fails to deliver.

The Red Mason Bees Osmia rufa have been busy over the past month collecting pollen and creating cells for their eggs. Here's a female coming back with mud to seal one of the tubes. - Update: following comments I've amended the title of the 2nd pic.

I purchased some Red Mason Bee tubes about three weeks ago, despite never having recorded a tube nesting bee in my garden before, then made a rather rustic 'bee hotel' to put them in. I placed it in my front garden, south facing as suggested and kept an eye on it over the past couple of weeks, half expecting that it would be taken over by spiders or even not being occupied at all. This morning I casually glanced at it and noticed that a couple of the tubes appeared to be blocked...so I took a closer look and, much to my surprise, I saw three little faces looking back at me.

I headed back to the park to try and find Green Hairstreak butterflies but they're still not out here yet. However, I did manage to see both Andrena fulva and A. cineraria and another of their cleptoparasites, another Nomada bee, presumably N. goodeniana.

Back out in the field at last. I went to see what was taking advantage of the unseasonal warm , sunny weather and managed to see a few Andrena fulva and one of their cleptoparasites, a Nomada bee, presumably N.flava but confirmation by photograph is not always possible. The female A.fulva had just deposited a pollen ball in it's underground nest. The micro moth, Eriocrania subpurpurella, was also about in small numbers.