Surprise

R and I did some gardening today (eeeurgh), but I kept the cameras close at hand, and one eye out for potential subjects. Having missed a male Southern Hawker, who seemed to take exception to us pruning the philadelphus on which he'd been perching and left in a huff, and a red kite which flew past but not over us, and was out of range before I had time to react, I struggled to find any wildlife to photograph. Admittedly, the garden is still very dry, and we don't have much in flower, but it seemed strange that the normally popular flowering plants such as Russian sage and red valerian were largely deserted.

Then I wandered round to the side of the house, where the boundary between our garden and the neighbours' is a tall, ivy-covered fence, and discovered why: the ivy is coming into flower already, and it seemed as though every nectar-feeder in the village was competing for a place at the buffet. I had to use a step ladder to get myself up to the top of the fence where most of the action was occurring, but with only a few flowers currently open, some of the behaviour that was going on was on the aggressive side of keen, and I kept a wary eye on the honey bees and common wasps as I pursued more peaceable subjects.

I was very surprised to discover a few male ivy bees (Colletes hederae) among the diners, because this is the earliest date on which I've ever photographed them. A couple of years ago I found some on August 31st, but they usually appear during the first or second week of September. They weren't even slightly aggressive - they have no sting, even if they were minded to attack - but they were fresh, nervous, and flighty, and for quite a while they fled every time I pointed the camera towards them. I'm not at my sunny best standing on top of a stepladder on very uneven ground, and I was beginning to contemplate giving up on them, for today at least, when this one landed just in front of me and began to groom himself. This process took around ten seconds, which allowed me a few shots of him pulling his antennae through his bent elbows to clear them of pollen, and then he walked to the edge of the leaf and paused, looking straight into the lens, before whisking away to continue feeding. Each autumn when I renew my acquaintance with these little guys, I find myself thinking that they're  one of the prettiest bees on the British list - and they're certainly one of my favourites.