After a mammoth load of pictures yesterday I have settled on just one photo for today; a beautiful bee hard at work gathering pollen from a buttercup. There are so many different varieties of bee that I cannot say which variety this is however as you can see it is living up to the reputation of being busy. As summer approaches and more flowers come into bloom this is the perfect time of year to spot some of our spectacular and incredibly important pollinators.
This hover fly was taking a moment to rest on the wooden handrail of a bridge across a small stream. With the sun beating down it was a good opportunity to warm up.
If you can, zoom in to enjoy the detail in this shot; those wonderful shiny compound eyes and the soft fur. There is so much to appreciate when you look closely at these fascinating insects. They're great pollinators and they don't sting or bite so they're great little critters.
So keeping things going along the same theme as yesterday but still from my visit to Bodnant here is a fantastic macro shot of an industrious bumblebee absolutely covered in sticky pollen.
As it was buzzing around it looked like a normal yellow and black bee going about its work but getting close up I could see that much of the yellow as in fact pollen and then with the help of my trusty macro lens we can all see just how much pollen there is.
We owe so much to these little beauties and when you see this it should underline just how important they are as pollinators.
I love macro photography because it means you can get in close and see detail that you would otherwise miss. Flowers are great with delicate petals, stamen and pollen for example and of course they are magnets for insects like this beautiful hoverfly.
Bugs can be quite tricky to photograph because they rarely stay still for very long and if they are in flight you need good light and a very fast shutter speed as well as a degree of luck to get the perfect shot.
Of course when they do settle on a flower for a little while you have to be ready to capture the shot. When I took this picture the light was fairly poor so I used a small hand held torch to illuminate the subject meaning I could highlight the shiny body and the glass like wings.
I guess the hoverfly uses its colour scheme to deter predators by tricking them into thinking it is a wasp or bee packing a powerful sting but they don't. They can go about their business pollinating flowers undetered.
