White Tailed Bumble Bee

I spotted a white-tailed bumble bee on the earth in a flower bed which seemed to be unable or unwilling to fly.  She started to climb a tulip, but the surface of the leaves was very slippery and she kept falling back so I picked her up on a stick and put it down near some flowers where she began eagerly nectaring.  I fear that she may have had some damage which prevented her flying as I never saw her take off.  To take the photos I was using high speed off camera flash, a technique which is new to me and was recently described by an expert at a Cambridge Camera Club meeting.  I also used it to take some flower pictures which I will post soon.

Pasque Flowers at Therfield

Pasque flowers (pulsatilla) are a rare wild flower which grow in profusion on a chalk outcrop beside Royston Heath Golf Course.  As their name implies they flower at Easter time and this year is one of the best shows in memory.  This afternoon, there was a strong breeze blowing as illustrated by the second shot and it is also fair to say that many of the flowers are now past their prime and bearing seed heads, but the final shot of a small part of the overall area shows just how profuse they are. Thank you to Ann Miles who guided me to them. For those interested, I took these shots with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with a 60mm macro lens.