Buff

I spent quite a large part of the day raging against the weather - as if that could possibly achieve anything. But it was stormy again this morning, with gusty winds and heavy rain, and frankly I'm utterly sick of it. Knowing there was no point going out hunting either bugs or owls, I skulked at my desk in a snit, balancing financial statements and clearing out unwanted emails, and thereby if anything putting myself into an even worse mood.

R then came to the rescue by offering to take me out to lunch, so we went off to Stratford, and by the time we emerged from BTP the worst of the weather had gone over and it was, if not bright, at least brighter. I photographed some swans doing various things along the river, and captured a few photos that I could foresee using for today's post. But then, as we arrived home, I heard a deep buzzing coming from the pulmonaria patch in the front garden, and found this Buff-tailed Bumblebee queen browsing the flowers. 

It was nearly 5pm by this time, and fairly dark in this part of the garden, and I had a long lens on the camera and no macro to hand. Also, not being a Hairy-footed Flower Bee (in expectation of whose emergence I'm currently haunting the pulmonaria patch) she was, strictly speaking, the wrong kind of bee. So the burst of shots I took were meant to be no more than a record. But for a big lens capture, at ridiculously low shutter speed and high ISO, this isn't bad - even if I does say it as shouldn't - and at the end the day it turns out that bee trumps swan. Three weeks into February, to have any bee feeding on the pulmonaria gladdens my bitter and twisted heart, and that's something for which anyone who has to put up with me must surely be grateful.