the call of nature

Here she is, my favourite new bee for the year so far… Isn’t she just gorgeous…

These girls are huge (and seriously loud in flight), and so golden and fluffy… And when the light catches that almost black abdomen at the right angle it shines a stunning deep blue 🙂, and they were so cool with me getting in close, it was a bee stalkers paradise…😃

The pics are of five different bees all starting their burrows, and I should point out that although in four of the five pics here they’re attempting to burrow in bare hard rocky ground, the majority were choosing to burrow alongside what little bit of new vegetation there is… (I’ll get back to that, gonna be a lot of disappointed tourists) …makes sense, green would indicate soil with some (if even slight) moisture content (anything softer than rock hard is a bonus 😅), and the new roots reaching out will be helping to break the concrete hard surface… And, 3rd pic, they’ve also got a bit of cover and shade (which is why four of the five pics are the ones out in the open… 🙂).

But as to how/where I found her… that was a one in a bazillion chance… 😆

So, back to the soon to be disappointed tourists and the actual story… Midwest WA is well known for it’s incredible wildflower displays, especially inland where the everlastings literally cover the ground, you’re driving through massive areas of just brilliant white ones that look like surreal snow fields against the stark red breakaway country and deep blue skies and then around the corner the landscape turns pink for as far as you can see, so pink it looks fake… Anyway, one of the popular tourist spots is Coalseam Conservation Park, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump (love that part of the track 😂) from where I usually go so we took a run out… Seriously disappointing, dry as a bone, stuff all flowers of any kind, the rugged landscape should be painted in the golden yellow of the dominant everlastings and splashed with thick patches of pink, white and various shades of blue… But nup, bare as… in fact barely even a flowering shrub… I saw a random lonely little flowering Hakea on the right side of dirt road up ahead so I pulled up alongside so I could look for bees without getting out of the car (yeah, the wrong side of the road but there was plenty of room and not much traffic) 😆 Sounds lazy I know, but it’s just a way of checking, if I see something cool I’ll pull up and have a proper look… 😄

But nup, saw nothin’, waste of time, I’ll go back to my usual spot where I’m guaranteed bees… Tho’, while I’m stopped by the road… before we head back, I’m thinkin’, I probably should have a wee… 😅 And it was only as I was enjoying that moment in nature at this random stop that I heard her… such a loud heavy buzz, the kind of buzz that if you didn’t know what it was and it landed on your ear you’d poop yourself…😂 then I saw her… half a K away and closing in fast… she was huge 🤣 Ok, that last bit’s not entirely true… She was only about 8-10 metres away hovering over the ground looking for a nesting site, so I went and had a look 🙂

Pretty chuffed, totally new one for me, Neopasiphaeinae for sure, that fluffy golden top half has me thinkin’ Trichocolletes but given my recent track record I reckon I’ll leave this one to the experts… 😄

Edited: wrong again 😂 not Neopasiphaeinae, not even the same major family… Even more chuffed, she’s in the Stenotritidae family, the smallest of the major families, it contains less than a couple of dozen known species Australia wide (makes it an easy search) and so far I can’t find a match for her… 😀 Might have a new new bee…

And as my mate Ken said… many a significant entomological discovery has been made due to the call of nature.

Check out more blogs and contribution by Gary Taylor.