I hope you got through the recent heat wave! The butterflies and bees seem to like the hot weather though, as I have seen several different species including Comma, lots of Gatekeepers and Common Carder Bee. Do have a go at the Big Butterfly Count and get involved in some citizen science! You will be contributing to Butterfly Conservation's great work in monitoring butterfly numbers to get an idea of how nature is fairing. All you have to do is find a spot preferably on a sunny day and spend 15 minutes counting the butterflies you see. There's a help chart so you know what you're looking at and it's great fun for the summer holidays. You have until 7th August to submit your count. Follow this link to find out more: https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/
The other insects that could do with our help is our bees, and for Christmas we got my dad a bee hive, which he has always wanted. This wasn't an ordinary hive either as it's for our native Buff-tailed Bumblebees. What happens is you receive the hive in advance then the bees are delivered and put into the hive at the start of the summer. Before placing them in your hive you have to take the cap off the food and water supply then pretty much leave them to it. The idea is to boost the native population of bumblebees and it's a lot of fun watching them come and go.
The bees arive in a box like this!
Here's the box next to the hive ready to be installed.
These are the bees inside getting agitated because it was a very warm day!
Here's the bees exploring they're new home for the first time!
This where we positioned the hive hopefully with enough shade.
I have also done some slow-mo's of the bees going in and out using my GoPro. Unfortunately it didn't quite work as planed so I had to slow it down using Adobe Rush which still achieved the same effect. My sister was my glamorous assistant and we we great fun filming our bees!
This weekend we're going up to Norfolk for a rather special reason. Our big plans for making our Norfolk garden into a 'nature reserve' or as close to as we can anyway. Very excitingly Joel Ashton the wildlife YouTuber is going to carry out the work for us installing a huge wildlife pond and decking with accessible path! I will keep you updated of the progress over the next couple of weeks. Do check out Joel's YouTube channel Wild Your Garden via this link its really informative: https://www.youtube.com/c/WildYourGardenwithJoelAshton
Hello Thomas I hope your well. I've just found your blog through watching your interview with the lovely Joel. A great interview at your wonderful nature reserve. Very interesting hearing how you've found nature is a great healer for you but also how fascinating wildlife is to you and that it is always a joy to experience it. I look forward to reading your blogs and looking at your photography. I do hope your little hobbit heater is warming your amazing hide and that you and your dad are seeing some amazing sights during this long winter we all seemed to have had. Take care. I follow you on Instagram already @wrensinslouder best wishes Tracey.