Flight of the bumblebee...

I've spent virtually all day leading walks. More or less six hours of explanation and discussion is quite draining, though very satisfying. In the morning I took our Riverwatch group along my local stretch of river, while this afternoon Pete and I led a Wildlife Group meeting at Castor Backwater. Pete and I split the group, and they spent half the time with him looking at the creatures which live in the river (which involved him getting completely submerged!) while I took the other half for a walk to show them the plants. This worked very well, in terms of keeping the group sizes small, but meant I had to do twice as much walking and talking!

I didn't take my camera at all, so spent a few minutes in the garden at lunchtime and after we returned, photographing butterflies and bees. I still haven't managed a decent image of a flying bee, but this was my best effort today. The common carder bees Bombus pascuorum have been very busy on the Russian sage, but are extremely busy, never stopping for very long at any individual flower. I used a continuous burst to try and capture the flight - and ended up with about four frames that were moderately in focus - the rest were rapidly consigned to the recycle bin!

PS Thank you all so much for the hearts and stars showered on yesterday's blue butterfly. Life remains very hectic and I'm just not getting enough time to thank you all individually.