Tawny Nesocolletes

I was delighted to see this native bee collecting pollen from the marigolds this morning. It is only found in the South Island of NZ, usually in the mountains. It is about 10mm long.

It was very hard to capture because she darted away when I approached closer than 1.5 metres, and she spent only a couple of seconds vigorously churning up the pollen on each flower. You can see how successful she has been in collecting pollen. She doesn’t have pollen bags, but carries the pollen mostly on her rear legs. She is collecting nectar at the same time.

Today the clouds lifted, for the first time in a week or more, and the mountains put in an appearance. I was surprised at how little snow was on them- just a few specks. In the last week we have become used to turning on the lights at 6pm, but suddenly the sun is setting at 8.50 pm. We could do with more of that.