Leaf-cutter bee

A wet morning, and a rather painful knee following my fall, meant that fieldwork had to be postponed. I took the car in fro a new set of brakes, and then spent the day trying to catch up with washing, shopping, emails and data entry. At the moment all is descending into chaos as we never have enough time to finish one job before the next has to be started. However, at least I finally got around to making some gooseberry chutney and Ben and I turned a leftover half watermelon into a delicious granita.

The sun came out in the afternoon, so I spent a while in the garden watching the myriad of bees, hoverflies and other insects feeding on the common knapweed. All the usual migrant hoverflies have arrived, and we have at least two species of leaf-cutter bee visiting. This one is probably Megachile willughbiella, which uses a variety of leaves when constructing its nests, including beech and tutsan.