Days of rain and roses

Gaia, knowing that today is International Environment Day, decided to rain upon proceedings, perhaps to tell us that EVERY day should be environmental day. We continue to pollute, destroy, wreck and exploit. We continue to think wealth can be counted in dollars and that beauty can be built.

Wouldn’t you know it; the day I least want to be outside no less than five deliveries of plants I’ve ordered over the last three months arrived. Some nicely potted plants could be popped into the mini-greenhouse to be planted out another day… others arrived as plugs that need planting to survive.

In my cold corner the rain brought forth half a dozen frogs so small they could ride the backs of snails. Unobserved by us, some of this year’s tadpoles had matured into perfect tiny hoppers.

Meanwhile thanks to a lovely lady from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, I now have the identity of a charming little bee which I’ve seen about for a week or two now.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee Megachile centuncularis

These solitary bees carry pollen in hairs under their bodies, known as a pollen brush. In the case of this chap the brush is entirely orange. The confusion here is that the tail end of the brush looks pink – even more obvious in the photo below. However, this is because the pollen of the scabious it is on is pink, so its brush is full of that pollen.