I'm not kidding when I say today had it all! Although full disclosure I did wake up at 4am so there were definitely enough hours for all the things to happen! But I'm talking everything from standing under thousands of bats heading home through cloudy skies at dawn through to a very unexpected, young Diamond Python curled up snoozing in my frangipani! Plus I did a walk down the hill and back up again using only my legs and many, many breaths pushed on by the desire to not be found in a sobbing, sweaty, half dead heap on the side of the road by the garbage truck that I could hear gaining on me every minute that I spent contemplating if I could indeed make it home.
But in amongst it all was a plethora (great word 😉) of native bees which I'm an absolute sucker for. I took my camera on my wander (of course) not really knowing exactly what it was that I would find but as I stood in front of shrub after shrub of lantana I started to notice a bit of movement. Honeybees firstly and mostly so I kept walking, slowly now though, hugging the flowers just in case something unexpected happened. With each step another dog seemed to wake up, barking away until I passed to the next house when its doggy neighbour would take over guard duty. 😂
And then I spotted only my second Teddy Bear Bee of the season!!! I LOVE these big fat fluffies so it was an easy decision where I would be spending the rest of my walk, getting my step count up by walking to one lantana bush, then to another and another and then circling back and doing it all again. Apologies to the doggy owners and those living next to the doggy owners! They did eventually get used to my determined pacing and I could focus totally on trying to capture these crazy, flighty bees rather than trying to blend into the landscape, quietening my every motion for fear that I'd cop an angry mouthful (and not just from the four legged locals!)
Like many of our native bee species, these lovelies are solitary and I ended up spotting maybe four of them, although they were all so fast and with that erratic flight they have, spending only very little time at each flower, that I didn't get any decent photos... until I stepped out onto what I thought was a nice level patch of freshly mowed grass, only to drop immediately down maybe 10 centimetres, wobbling as I got my footing. And as threw my head up, I'll be honest, mainly to check if anyone had spotted my near tumble, I came eye to eye with a Teddy who was more than happy to take its damn sweet time, landing on, drinking from, standing on and then hovering nearby a set of flowers not far from me. Thank you Teddy! You made feeling the burn completely and utterly worth it!
Teddy Bear Bee
Northern Illawarra
