Backyard Zoology · 31 March 2018
2018-03-31T12:39:44+11:00
https://www.facebook.com/backyardzoology/posts/pfbid0zq47toZiEs9zoLxTCuvREqxnereKy7wXDPqzh6uJsFKYqCE2At6J7f5FV2XGZtz3l

So yesterday was Good Friday which means next to nothing was open. Well none of the important places anyway, no supermarkets, no bottle shops, no nothing, which meant that we had to sustain ourselves, like real adults doing real adulting. So we took ourselves to the local beach cafe for breakfast 🤣🙌 Let me tell you, sitting there watching the waves crashing and sea birds cruising by with a coffee in hand is one hell of a way to start a long weekend.

Wednesday just gone was hubby's birthday so I bought him a new lens for his camera and we were hoping to take it for a test drive oceanside after breaky. For some reason though we were getting loads of suspicious looks. Not sure why...we were just wandering the sand dunes, occasionally hidden by the beach shrubbery, telephoto lenses in hand 🤣 We kind of gave up after a while and on a whim I decided to stop just at the side of the road where I captured the picture of the Blue-Banded Bee about 2 weeks ago. We stood around, chatting and waiting for birds or anything of interest to show up and were just about to head home when it appeared - my absolute favourite total bastard: the Neon Cuckoo Bee.

It made sense that this guy was hanging with the BBBs - they lay their eggs in the burrows of the BBB, choosing not to nest themselves - and the egg of the Neon Cuckoo tends to hatch prior to that of the Blue-Banded. Unfortunately what this means is that by the time the BBB hatches, the NCB young has gorged itself on the pollen left by the female BBB, leaving the other little guy to starve. See, total bastards (beautiful bastards though)

Neon Cuckoo Bee
Northern Illawarra

#northernillawarra #entomology #coalcoast #neoncuckoobee #totalbastard #backyardzoology