Author Gary Taylor ◦
Male Megachile (Eutricharaea), macularis I’d reckon. Quick little buggers, this guy wasn’t being very cooperative at the start, but it wasn’t long before he too packed it in due to the heat and went and had a snooze instead…
And you might bee thinking he doesn’t look like he’s sleeping, his antennae look very alert…
I thought the same when I first spotted him, doubted my chances of getting close enough for a pic, I’d have to get in amongst the branches, surely it would scare him off… But nope, he didn’t move or change his stance from the time I first spotted him to when I finally left him alone after taking a bunch of pics (he was in the shade so I had to use the flash… trouble with flash is it takes the pic half a second after you’ve got your focus spot on and pushed the button, and that’s all it takes for even a light breeze to move your subject out of focus… so I was there for awhile 😆).
Makes me wonder if it’s a defence mechanism against predators, looking alert while sleeping, or if it’s more a case of male multi-tasking, the ability to snooze AND keep an antenna out for chicks at the same time… 😃
