2 p.m., 20℃, 69℉ in the sun – cloudless: I cleared a square metre of what will be a wild flower and plants for pollinators bed, discarding the creeping buttercup and chicory but keeping the knapweed, dog daisy and teasel.
Woodpecker drumming, wood pigeon cooing. Coma and peacock butterflies basking.
The pulmonaria was self-sown. It did so well under the hedge that it started to encroach on the path, so we moved it to the pollinators’ bed.
A small, 1.5 cm approx., dark bumblebee with no obvious stripes visits the pulmonaria flowers, shadowed by a smaller, 1 cm, light brown bee, watching, hovering a few inches away, in fact acting like a drone in the modern sense, It then briefly pounces on the larger bee but is rebuffed after just a second.
The larger bee checks out another pulmonaria flower and the smaller bee pauses at a nearby flower, but doesn’t continue shadowing the larger bee.
I’m guessing this is a male, a drone, following a female.
Snake’s head fritillary, planted in sunken pots for its own protection against rampant chicory.
