Guardian

I did far too much gardening today, tidying one of the long borders in the back garden and the soft fruit bed in the secret garden. I then snapped and snarled at R when he got home from running errands, because I was both overtired and furiously frustrated by today's stormy weather. Instead of telling me to pull myself together, which wouldn't have been unreasonable, he took me out to Hillers for coffee, cake, and plant shopping - and thus domestic harmony was restored. (I did apologise, by the way - I'm not a complete monster.)

Because of the violent wind, scudding cloud, and dramatically variable light, it wasn't a great day for macro photography. Also, most of the smaller bees and hoverflies stayed in their roosts, and it was really only the heftier invertebrates - bumblebees, plumpies, and larger hoverflies such as Eristalis - that seemed prepared to come out and risk getting blown around. Not that I mind photographing hairy-footed flower bees, as you've possibly noticed, but I was very much hoping to score a bee-fly today, and sadly that didn't happen.

This though was a happy encounter: just the second female plumpie I've seen this year, and the first I've managed to get on camera. She was so covered with pollen that it took me a couple of seconds to work out what she was (a worn bumblebee such as Bombus pratorum had been my first thought), and it was the lurking presence of the male that alerted me to her real identity. Tonight's two photos were taken one second apart: the extra was the earlier shot, when his stealthy approach turned into a sudden pounce, and though it's sadly blurry because I didn't have the light for a really fast shutter speed, I'm happy to have caught what I think may have been a successful mating attempt. My reasoning is that she was eating at the time, rather than foraging as I would expect mated female to be doing. Also, she barely reacted to being jumped, whereas females who've already been mated tend to respond quite negatively to fresh approaches; and she carried on calmly eating afterwards. Finally, the fact that he continued to hover above her until she left, but didn't pounce again, made me think that he was probably guarding her from possible approaches by other males.