More patch stuff

A walk round in the sun. Bird-wise it is fairly quite. Just a Red Kite soaring around a long way up, and a Kestrel a Sparrowhawk and several Buzzards all enjoying the sun and the heat. Closer to the ground there was a male Bullfinch, several singing Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, a Shoveler and a Little Grebe on the pond, and down at Feakes Lock I could see Little Owl and Grey Wagtail whilst at the same time a Cetti's Warbler sang. Otherwise a male Reed Bunting looking quite spectacular, a Meadow Pipit over, and Green and Great-Spotted Woodpecker so once again a nothing-kind-of-day turns out to have quite decent list.

My first Speckled Wood Butterfly of the year, a number of Orange-tips, a few Small Tortoiseshells and a couple of Peacocks gave a decent butterfly list, and some Buff-tailed Bumblebee queens were flying around. I think I saw my first worker of the year (white/buff-tailed) and there was a Tawny Mining Bee on the hawthorn.

Buff-tailed queen

standard close-up of Hawthorn/Blackthorn flowers

Dreadful picture of a Tawny Mining bee

There were a few sites with lots of small piles of fine soil with holes in the middle. Generally these were in bare parts of the field on a slight slope. I watched for a while and saw no creatures come out of these. I wonder if they are Tawny Mining Bee nests that the adults have emerged from so they are no longer using them. Here's a typical one.