Seasalter Bees And A New Hoverfly

28th May

It was a quiet day at SS, the tide was out and not many birds as I walked along to the start of the seawall. I noticed a lot of small greyish bees, Sandpit Mining bees, Andrena barbilabris dashing about around  the seabeet and stopped for ages trying to photograph some of them. Also I noticed a couple of other bees, Gold-fringed Mason bees, Osmia aurulenta, one couple mating, didn't know they did it like that!

             The above are the Sandpit Mining bees, Andrena barbilabris, unless informed otherwise.

                                 The female Gold Fringed Mason bee, Osmia aurulenta

                                                                           Mating

                                                         Another shot of the female

Also I nearly missed this new hoverfly Eristalinus aeneus which was close by, at first thought it was the 'sepulchris' version that I had seen once before at Stodmarsh but Chris Sellen thought otherwise.

All along the mud path there were little holes with piles of earth around them made by these tiny bees which are from the Lasioglossum family and very difficult to separate.