Our week in pictures

We have sampled lots of different and interesting habitats on our fieldwork so far…

In this pretty cemetery in Whitkirk it was so nice to see that this patch had been left unmown and the primroses allowed to flourish!

Beautiful bluebells in Middleton Woods.

And parks like this one in Hyde Park which brings out the kid in all of us!

Although sometimes we get the feeling we’re being watched ;)

Here’s a few of our pollinator spots for the week.

A bee fly.

A tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum).

A solitary bee (Andrena sp. ) enjoying a dandelion.

A very muddy early mining bee (Andrena haemorrhoa)

Whilst out and about on campus we recently discovered a city of tawny mining bees – an idyllic little spot of grass covered with cowslips and violets near to the School of Music where almost every inch of ground seemed to have a nest or a wandering bee in it. I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many in one small space! So it just shows how valuable these little pockets of habitat can be in urban environments, not just for feeding but nesting too.

Can you spot the bee spying on its neighbours from its nest?

There were also some Nomada bees sneaking around, which lay their eggs in the nests of Tawny mining bees so that their larvae can steal from the provisions laid out for the tawny bee larva. We didn't manage a good picture of the ones at university but here is a better shot of one basking on a leaf in one of our gardens.