Some of our insectivorous plants failed to make it through the cold, insect-free spring: others have started to blossom: the purple flower is a Butterwort, the 'trifid-like' greenish ones are Pitcher Plants, with the white flower of a Venus Fly Trap in the background.
Until Linda starting keeping bees, I didn't know that the Queens can vocalise. They make two sounds: a 'quack' that is reminiscent of Jimmy Carr's laugh and a toot like a toy trumpet. You can hear them both on the video below, taken just before one Queen exited the hive with a swarm of followers.
I should imagine that the similar 'toot' of a Death's Head Moth is an attempt to emulate a queen's call to encourage the other bees to tolerate and feed it.
Linda, Sue, Peter and I met old friends Joyce and Andrew at Potton Hall, just a stone's throw from Minsmere. We spent a delightful morning looking around the beautiful parklands around Potton Hall (and catching up with each other's gossip!) before driving the short distance to J & A's house for lunch. Bird highlights of the trail were numerous Buzzards, lots of Hirundines and a singing Nightingale as we enjoyed coffee. (There was an amazingly bright halo around the Sun for most of the afternoon...)
After a wonderful lunch, the Burthenshaws led us on a four mile walk around Westleton Heath: what a beautiful part of the world! Displaying hawk-like eyesight, Peter found us both Stone Curlew and Nightingale, with 'back-up' from Hobby and Stonechat. (It was good to hear Stone Curlews calling on several occasions: a first for Linda.)
On the way home, we stopped at the Waveney House Hotel in Beccles for supper: a terrific end to a perfect day!
Last night I drove to the top of the Heath to obtain a clear north-western horizon: with a virtually cloudless sky, I was able to take a few pictures of Venus and Mercury, the two innermost planets of the Solar System. Mercury is growing dimmer each day: as it moves around the Sun it shows an increasingly thin crescent. Tonight will be the best time to view this conjunction until 2033: worth a look!
This morning an early rise provided views of giant planet Jupiter and its four largest moons: Io, Calisto, Ganymede and Europa. I was interested to note on several photos that a bright red point of light moved around to the west of Jupiter...
It's been a rotten May for Linda's bees: lots of pollen (eventually) but too cold for the flowers to produce nectar. This seems to have upset the poor little things: every five minutes they look as if they're about to swarm. Linda has been rushing about trying to find a solution - she's split the hives, called in another, more experienced keeper for help, but nothing seemed to be working... Then, at around 6.00pm, one of the hives did swarm! They flew all around the garden, before settling in a Magnolia tree: as I write, we're waiting for a beekeeper to come and collect them!
One interesting occurrence: while Linda was looking for 'spare' queens, she recorded two calling from one hive: most strange sounds - one was 'tooting', the other 'quacking'. Never heard that before!
While observers on the other side of the Atlantic were enjoying a total lunar eclipse, we just got a 'Flower Moon' (When did Native American mythology take over the UK's collective consciousness?)
Still: an impressive sight at Moonrise: the Moon was genuinely suffused with an orange glow...
Those of you who enjoyed my meteorite Zoom last week might like to join in with the next installment:
Last night I went outside to photograph the International Space Station (its second of three passes, at 10.00pm) After the ISS passed into eclipse, I turned my camera southwards towards the gibbous Moon: as I started a series of 20 exposures, I noticed two objects moving towards the Moon from the west. The brighter, higher of the two changed direction twice before passing in front of the moon: it reappeared (alone) a few seconds later. What were these objects? Were they in Earth orbit, or beyond the Moon?
