Peak nectar time for bees on the goat willow

I had to photograph the bees today. It is peak nectar time for bees on the goat willow and the noise of buzzing and humming was astonishing as I stood underneath the tree.

Eventually I went up to my study which looks out over the landscape with the goat willow right outside the window. The sun shone but there was a strong breeze moving both the branches and the insects which had gathered to feed.

The weather forecast for the Easter holiday is very poor so I wanted to record the scene while the conditions were good. It is still quite a challenge to catch bees in flight. Sometimes there were three or four bees of varying sizes nuzzling up together on certain buds, with no sense of territorial disputes as far as I could tell.