Marmalades and nectar

Four marmalade hoverflies supping nectar on the same thistle head

I'm very much a country mouse.  We live at the edge of a city, so we're close to amenities, but I spend hours walking through local countryside. Most weeks, I see far more sheep and cattle than I do people -  and I'm more than happy for it to stay that way.  I see deer, foxes, the occasional weasel, loads of rascally rabbits, I hear skylarks singing, there are red kites circling overhead, kestrels hovering, flocks of titmice and charms of goldfinches, and the summer is full of swallows.  There are wild hops growing near the nearest village pub, and the hedgerows are full of blackberries at the right time of year. 

We get an amazing variety of invertebrates - I'm not expert enough to be able to differentiate all the hoverflies, for instance, but some are easy to identify; the hornet mimics are amazing, and have abdomens with stunningly pure yellow stripes.  I love the marmalade ones - when I'm in the garden, the air is often full of them. Hoverflies don't have stings, by the way, so it's safe to get up close even to the hornet mimics; they have evolved wasp-like colours as a form of protection.  I was sorting through some of my photos a couple of days ago, and I found this one where I was lucky enough to get this photo of four of them on this thistle; I love the vibrancy of the colours!  Some people might call this thistle a weed - I call it a feeding station and I love it for that as much as I do for its form and colours.

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