Whisker's Diary.

Haven't posted here in a while. The "insulation" has long been removed from my wormery.





Here are two pics of the entrance to a bumblebees' nest which I uncovered yesterday. The burnt grass is, more or less, the "landing pad" to the nest. All you see of the nest is the little black hole, which is the entrance. The lawnmower has gone over this several times, not to mention the wheel-barrow and even "yours truly's" big feet. The residents have protested, but then carry on about their business, as before. There is a surprising amount of "traffic" in and out of this nest.

Thank you @hywel. The nest is right near my compost heap, where there always seems to have been bumble bees. They would be a bit irate and disturbed, when I'd go to remove some rotted compost, but I thought they might have been nesting behind some rotted wood. Eventually I saw the little hole in the ground. I had the idea that bumble bees were, more or less, solitary creatures. But you should see the amount of "traffic" there is in and out of that nest. The hole is only big enough for one bee to get in or out, but you would see two arriving back and one trying to get out. They have to squeeze past each other, getting in and out of the hole! LOL! They are tough, because, as I mentioned, the lawn-mower has gone over that nest quite a few times, not to mention the wheel-barrow and me stepping on it.

I have a nest of Buff tails, very interesting watching their coming and going

I'd never heard of them until recently Whisker, I noticed the colouration when watching them and googled the name when I saw someone else mention buff tails, but apparently it is a fairly common Bumblebee

I think it was SueA who knew the varieties and mentioned bufftails.

I had some empty pots stored under bushes in bin liners. Hopeless arrangement! The wind blew the bags around and the pots rolled out. Today I pulled the whole lot out and found there was a bare space underneath. A robin, whom I have christened "Cheeky" for obvious reasons, came right down to within a foot or two of me and had a party picking up insects and worms. He would allow me to bend over and talk to him. He'd look at me with those quizzical eyes and was not a bit put out. Amazing how close robins can be to humans. They are almost tame.

I replaced the bin-liners with the 3 ft by 3 ft skip bag. Much better, I think!

Thanks for sharing that, jasmin33. That's quite amazing. Thrushes are beautiful birds.