Wordless Wednesday - Blacktailed godwit

Huffin' and puffin

I did a very brief seabird cruise this weekend which succeded in finding a few of my targets. For starters I got good looks at these little chaps. Atlantic puffin.

I must confess to being slightly underwhelmed by puffins generally. Yes they've got the funny beak and the whole line of sand-eels thing but compared to other seabirds like razorbills or gannets (or for that matter the great auks that once graced our coastline) I can't get as excited about them as the general public seems to.

Nonetheless it was pretty cool to see the little guys again. We don't have many here compared to the thousands that nest up north so we tend to see them in ones and two's only but that's ok.

The bees are buzzin' in the tree....

.....to make some honey for some dude who's not me. Gah. I have wanted bees for quite a while but it turns out beekeeping is "the new rock and roll" so everyone wants to do it which means places on beekeeping courses and access to bees here on the island is limited in the extreme. Hence the current situation finds me (and my work colleague who is similarly keen on giving apiary a bash) beeless whilst someone else's workers collect the fruit of my Ceanothus!

Just look at all the pollen in those pollen baskets. Thieving little so and so's!

I mean this is an outrage. Really. Luckily I've managed to deploy a team of blockers. Whilst the buff-tailed bumblebee worker below won't produce any honey for me at least that pollen won't form sweet gooey sugary goodness for anyone else to enjoy. Except, you know, bumblebee larvae and so forth.

This is the first time I've noticed pollen baskets on a bumble. Pretty impressive haul. Who knew Ceanothus kicked out so much pollen (besides obviously these guys)?