Bittern

On Wednesday 21st November, we had a brilliant talk about bees from Brian Eversham. I learned an awful lot, including some gruesome stuff about parasites and parasitoids, particularly mean old bee- wolves that paralyse bees before laying their eggs on them. It gets even more gruesome after that. I had planned to ask him about the strange, tough, spongy material that had been found in one of our nest boxes but I didn't need too as Brian included it in his talk. It was a mass of silken tubes made by the larvae of the wax moth. These beasties eat bees wax and just about everything else in a bees' nest.

Great yellow bumblebee.

Did you know:

• Cuckoo bees lay their eggs in other bees' nests?
• Bee-flies are not bees but they are furry like bees and also lay their eggs in bees' nests.
• Bee-flies rub dust on their eggs to make them darker and heavier.
• Ivy bees are just about the last bees of the season to emerge. They sleep for most of the year.
• Violet carpenter bees are coming to our area. They are huge.
• The rarest and biggest bee in the UK is the great yellow bumble bee but it is only found near Cape Wrath. 
• Worker bees sting but don't mate. That's because their sting is actually their modified sex organ.
• Look out for tree bees next year. After colonising the UK in 2001 they are coming to Paxton. They often nest in bird boxes.
• If you look at comfrey flowers you can often see a hole in the petals where a short tongued bee has bitten a hole to suck nectar through. 

Violet carpenter bee. 

Our thanks to Brian for another brilliant talk on insects. On the other hand........

While the audience of fifty plus was assembling, I looked out the window to see a kingfisher perched on the edge of Weedy Pit. Migrant blackbirds and redwings were feeding on berries in the car park and I was tempted to sneak out for a better look. I didn't tell anyone as the there would have been a mad rush for the doors.

While I wasn't looking out of the window, the following happened:

"Just after arriving this afternoon I spotted the Great White Egret landing at the back of Weedy Pit. This seemed to drive out a Bittern which led to a “Face Off” for a minute or two. I took several pictures and have attached one for you."

Derek Hale (A birder from the IOW)
Thanks Derek. Nice one!

Photo by Derek Hale.