Less is More

This week’s Lens Artist photo challenge is less is more.

 

Mulranny Causeway, tide in

Small country road in the green of spring

Doolough Beach

Six on Saturday

Apple Blossom

Chokeberry Blossom with solitary bee

Crab apple Blossom

Carder bumblebee cleaning herself

Cuckcoo bumble feeding on black currant

Red campion

More Six on Saturday, hosted by The Propagator links can be found here

Saint Mark’s flies

Today, 25th April is St Mark’s day and I have never seen so many St Mark’s flies around us. Whether it is the couple of warm days we’ve had over the Easter or just a bumper year for these odd little flies I am not sure. One of the distinctive features of these flies is their dangling legs. They are found around woodland edges, hedgerows and wetlands.

St Mark flies – Bibio marci

I think when I took these photos only the males were about. They have larger eyes and are blacker and smaller than the females.

The flies are harmless and feed on nectar so are also accidentally pollinators. They only have a short flying life cycle and spend much of their lies as larva in the soil when they eat rotting vegetation.

Bibio marci

Earth Day 2019

May we all find inspiration in our beautiful world, to protect and enhance biodiversity for the generations who come after us.

A little bit of photo creativity for Earth Day and Lens Artist Photo Challenge – Creativity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silent Sunday

Achill Island, Co.Mayo, Ireland

Six on Saturday

 

Common carder bee with it’s head deep inside a comfrey flower

1. Comprey is always a great bee plant, and it just keeps on flowering the whole season through which is a huge benefit for pollinators. 

Carder bee on flowering kale

2. I always let my over-wintered kale flower as it is another valuable food source, not just for carder bumbles but also early bumblebees and white tailed bumblebees too.

Wasp of black currant

3. Wasps are predators of other insects but queen wasps emerging from hibernation seem to love my blackcurrant bushes. Each spring I see them feeding on the flowers, I suspect gathering nectar from the flowers.

Garden bumblebee on autumn olive tree

4. The autumn olive is proving really popular with the bees too. Yesterday I counted four different types of bees feeding on it as well as some small hoverflies.

Carder on Indian pea tree

5; Another carder (they are easier to photograph than other bees!) on the Indian pea tree.

Tulip

6. And finally a flower without a bee to complete my Six on Saturday .

Delicious

Home grown fruit and vegetables from garden to dinner plate. Food miles = zero, taste = delicious

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

harvest

Red cabbage

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Tomatoes

Plums

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Garlic

Sea buckthorn

Black currants

Wildlife Wednesday

An empty blackbird nest in the beech hedge in the garden, exposed now because winds have blown the brown leaves off before the new ones are ready to open. We suspect either eggs or chicks were predated.

blackbird nest

 

Silent Sunday

Causeway at Mulranney, Co Mayo

Spring

Gaiainaction has inspired me to write a post on spring and sense of place. All around spring is in full flow. Fruit blossom burst forth not just on the trees in the garden but also along the hedgerows that line our roads and divide the fields around us.

apple blossom

On the hedge banks primroses, my favourite spring flower, release their delicate scent.

Primroses

In the trees, blackbirds and pigeons are building nests. Robins are finding the highest branches to sing and proclaim their territories. In the sunshine of the afternoon, sleepy butterflies, recently woken from their winter hibernation drink thirstily from the nectaries of flowers.

Red Admiral on plum blossom

As I walk up the road there is a spring in my step. The grey, dark days of winter are finally over us. Each walk brings new highlights. The first bumblebees, the first violets. Whatever it is. These little gems cannot be seen from the inside of a car, so it is important to get out and walk. Experience nature. Immerse yourself in the sounds, scents and joys of it all. Go outside. See if you can find something different, something you have never noticed before.

Buff tailed bumblebee