High tide was nice in the Burry but no birds of interest to photograph and a trip to Oxwich hide found a man with a machine working in front of the hide so.......... turn of attention to insects on the Ivy blossom. Lots to see including:
Mellinus arvensis decapitating a fly prior to carrying it back to the burrow, they don't always do this according to photographs, maybe this was a feisty fly!
a better view of the Mellinus.
My first Colletes hederae! A check later at Port Eynon also found them there so they are likely to be widespread now? Anyone else seen them yet?
Day wasn't totally bird free. This Goldfinch, feeding on Evening Primrose seed was so confiding it got a face full of flash and my 100mm macro!
High tide was nice in the Burry but no birds of interest to photograph and a trip to Oxwich hide found a man with a machine working in front of the hide so.......... turn of attention to insects on the Ivy blossom. Lots to see including:
Mellinus arvensis decapitating a fly prior to carrying it back to the burrow, they don't always do this according to photographs, maybe this was a feisty fly!
a better view of the Mellinus.
My first Colletes hederae! A check later at Port Eynon also found them there so they are likely to be widespread now? Anyone else seen them yet?
Day wasn't totally bird free. This Goldfinch, feeding on Evening Primrose seed was so confiding it got a face full of flash and my 100mm macro! 
5 comments:
Your Ivy Bee C. hederae records could be the first for Wales, if the museum have not picked it up yet.
I checked the lane into Overton Mere twice last year with no result.
The BWARS website only has their 2010 map which shows no Welsh records, and the NBN Gateway has an even older map.
Must check the Vale this week.
Nigel Ajax Lewis
Great detail of the Mellinus at work and fab record of the Colletes too by the sound of it!
I am assumed that CCW think they have been in North Wales for a couple of year.
There appears to be no records between SW England and there in the mean time.
I hope they know what they are liking at and hopefully reporting as well.
If true we should all be looking at our flowering ivy for large numbers of wide striped bees and telling us about them preferrable with photographs....
Nigel Ajax Lewis
Thanks for the comments guys. Stuart Roberts of BWARS has been very helpful. He has received no welsh records. He seems reasonably sure they are C. hederae but suggests a specimen or two be taken and given to the national museum anyway. I am not likely to be able to go now and the weather is a lot more dodgy so if anyone else does.......
The whole point of posting was to draw attention to this species in the hope that a lot of Ivy checking would happen. I would suggest coastal sites near sandy soils would be most likely. I have looked at Llangennith and in front of swansea university.
Further record of Colletes hederae from Porthcawl on 14 October! Eyes peeled everyone
Stuart Roberts www.bwars.com
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