Bumblebee sightings

Where bumblebees go in September

Here in Gloucestershire there are two places where you can reliably find bumblebees, well OK after borage, teasel, Corydalis, laurel and Buddleia...

  In gardens around here an annual that returns every year is popular with white-tailed bumblebees: Sedum

It's easy to grow and would fit into a small space like a car port.

Out in the countryside 

there seems to be a lot of unclaimed nectar among the white and red clover, trefoil and vetches which are still in flower. 

Is it too windy out in the fallow strips beside the ploughed fields?

The place where I can reliably find bees is by the stream where the mint grows.

Do bumblebees fix on just one source of nectar? 

Sometimes bees can be seen flying from one flower to another of the same species, usually starting from the bottom and working there way upwards. 

Do they overlook other possible sources in a bid to save time? 

Just occasionally I see a bee darting from teasel to corydalis to cranesbill to take tiny sips. 

Is this a sign of desperation due to falling nectar production in late summer?

There are some tree bumblebees around; I just haven't been able to catch one on camera. 

I am trying to find bees other than common carder bees and white-tailed bumblebees.

Bumblebees: using all the senses

Sight, sound and smell are all needed 

 to track down bumblebees in September. 

On windy days like today bee flight can seem erratic. Even if you catch sight of a bee it can rapidly disappear.
   Listening to the buzz may help you to tell wasps, flies and bumblebees apart. The tone of a bumblebee is deeper and by listening carefully you can work out the bee's speed and direction. There are probably differences in tone between bumblebees that would help you identify which bee it is.
  Smell is helpful too in noticing when flowers are producing nectar. Stand by a fruiting ivy in September and you can smell the nectar on the leeward side [the opposite side to the wind].
Yellow Corydalis is a self-sown plant [also known as a weed] attracting bees during mild weather in mid-September:

On mild windy days, yellow corydalis which grows beside walls offers a source of nectar that's less blown about.

The other reliable fall back for bumblebees in rain is white deadnettle:

which seems to provide nectar even on windy and wet days:

Maybe it's more productive than clover and scabious which don't seem to be visited as often in September.

Best time for bees

The best time to watch bumblebees

When's the best time to watch bumblebees in September? Is it on sunny mornings? I've noticed that white-tailed bumblebees and common carder bees seem active at 8am when the sun's shining.

  In my garden, it's the self sown weeds that are attracting the bumblebees at the moment:

Evening primrose

Sweet Pea

Teasel

Do Bees behave differently in September?

This morning I watched a white-tailed bumblebee racing from one evening primrose flower to another without collecting nectar or pollen, almost bumping into a carder bee that was leaving a flower, revisiting flowers it had just rejected, flying towards other plants with flowers but rapidly flying onwards. She gave the impression of being desparate for a fix of sugar-containing nectar.

  I wondered if the combination of warm sun, cool shade and less nectar was affecting her behaviour; the available nectar-containing flowers seem to have been well visited by bees and hoverflies.

  On the other hand I watched a white-tailed worker get caught up in a strand of spider's web and after being held for a few seconds she flew strongly enough to free herself.

A carder bee drinking from a blue sow-thistle

Carder bees will chase off common blue butterflies and small coppers who were feeding on white clover:

Clover is about the only nectar-producing flower in grass meadows around here.

September bumblebees

Where do bumblebees go in September?

You don't see as many bumblebees in late summer but they haven't all disappeared. 

Where to look?

  4 places you could try

1 Ivy

IVY is in fruit throughout September so you could look there but just at the moment wasps and hoverflies seem to dominate:

There are some bumblebees,

 I wonder if wasps are competing with bees and winning, though I think the balance may change as wasps die back in autumn.

2 Garden and wasteland flowers: 

such as the ever abundant Buddleia 

And lavendar

  But also wasteland plants like green alkanet and white deadnettle that are attracting common carder bees:

And of course garden centres and open gardens. 

                                     3 Beside streams:

The much maligned alien plant which aggressively colonises streams and rivers.  In Somerset this week, this is one of the best places to look: the tallest annual in Britain has established a niche: Himalayan Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera

 It may be a musty-smelling invader that flings its seeds explosively up to 4 metres through the air but it's an ideal source of nectar.
In Somerset you find Common carder bees and white-tailed bumblebees climbing inside the policeman helmet-shaped flowers. 

                                     4 In lawns and in the undergrowth:
You might look in the undergrowth, where queen bees are looking for places to hibernate.

Here's a white-tailed queen bumblebee burrowing a hole in a lawn in Somerset.

Directing and storyboarding an animation

How does a film director relate to the animator?

In stop motion animation the director and the animator are often the same person in which case it's vital to differentiate between the two roles. 

Director of the animation:

• A clear vision
• oversees the creative process
• casts the characters
• chooses the location of the set
• decides on lighting, camera position
• Directs the characters
• Sets a mood for each scene
• Chooses a shot list

Animator

• creates characters for close-up, mid-shot and long shot, side profile, head-on
• transforms the characters eg in an explosion
• designs animated backgrounds
• creates props 
• develops transitions between shots
• creates contrast between character and background
• offers ways for characters and background to interact

Between them, the director and animator agree on a storyboard. Story telling involves introducing characters which the audience can relate to, setting a challenge for the main character which leads to conflict which reaches some kind of resolution by the end of the film. 

In animation, characters are few and all are generally introduced in the opening frames. This offers the viewer forewarning so they can anticipate what may unfold and part of the fun of watching film is to be surprised at an unexpected turn of events.

Viewers expect a film to refer back to films seen in the past: borrowing, parody, adaptation, and modernisation are central film-making and lead to recognised genres with styles and typical storylines such as gothic, realist and anime.

Once the storyboard is agreed, 

An animatic is helpful in translating the storyboard into an animation. An animatic is a series of clips or stills using the characters which is played out in real time to test for timing and clarity. 

The animatic may be shown to a naive audience in order to judge its effect. Once the animatic is adapted, the shot list is next. This is a list of all the planned shots in the film, which helps in deciding in what order to shoot the scenes. Usually this is completely different to the final sequence as the opening and closing scenes oftren closely resemble each other, with crucial differences. This saves time in building sets and animating the characters. In craft animation there have to be reserve copies of the characters as the process of filming can damage armatures or models. The shot list may indicate essential shots and optional extra shots.  But in practice, some shots work better than others.

Filming throws up all kinds of practical problems. Lack of time, change in lighting, weather and incidental factors may all prevent the non-essential shots being taken. 

So what happens next? 

Directing involves ditching shots which fail to come across and developing new shots which explain the story better. It may be necessary to make new models of central characters and to change the set to reach internal consistency. When the clips are joined together, some scenes may stand out as inconsistent and need to be thoroughly reworked.

Throughout filming, the director is asking: 

How does this shot develop the story? 

In animation this especially involves transformation and transitions which are impossible in live filming. After each day's filming, the question is: what worked best today and how can filming tomorrow take in these lessons?

Evenings in England in spring

There is a special feeling to an evening walk which is quite different to a walk in the morning. 

The birds are settling down.

Linnets and goldfinches call from the highest branches. Blackcaps start up and are visible before the leaves fully open out. Perhaps they have eaten well and can ease off before settling down to roost. 

Startled birds call out.

Birds are sometimes startled as you walk by because they have already 'come home to roost'. Blackbirds commonly strike up collective alarm calls in the undergrowth, warning of an owl or a crow in the ivy close to their nests.

There is less noise from humans. 

Many people are having tea, there are few walkers and the tree cutting is over, though the tractors and ploughs may still be in the fields. Woods have a special quality of silence.

Sound carries further on a still evening. 

You can sense the shape of the valleys from the resonating calls and sounds which echo across a wooded valley. Later in the season, the leaves will block more of the sounds. 

Birds are paired up.

If you see one green woodpecker you are likely to see two. Jackdaws fly in pairs, yellowhammers retreat along hedgerows in pairs.

The colours are intense

Blue sky takes on pastel shades and deepens the blues. Fresh leaves are bright green. Yellows stand out in the setting sun.

Most of all there is a mood.

It may reflect what has happened to you during the day, you may pick up sadness in the fluty song of a blackbird, or hope in the chortling song of a pair of linnets.
I'll be exploring a mindful evening walk on Saturday starting at 6pm.

Natural Mindfulness

Natural Mindfulness is 'letting Nature in' 

but what does this mean exactly?

  To me, it means look, listen and feel. It's March so we're used to looking out for the first flowers that appear in spring: lesser celandines:

and Coltsfoot

I can't switch off my thinking but I can direct it to the spontaneous events that are happening all around me while walking in nature. Like the emergence of a Comma butterfly from hibernation.

I find listening especially helpful. So I walk slowly, I pause but not in a self-conscious way; I listen for ten seconds and I'm constantly asking myself: 
    "What's special and different today?"
I can't see them but I can hear nuthatches and jackdaws, a buzzard flies overhead. These are the kind of things that make me glad to be alive.
Seasons change imperceptibly but every day reveals more preparations for the season ahead.
Today I heard fieldfares and song thrushes together. These two members of the thrush family overlap but soon the fieldfares will be migrating back to Norway and Sweden to nest.

  So today I heard woodpeckers drumming, a typical sound that belongs to British springtime:

https://vimeo.com/208677486

That greater spotted woodpecker has found a particularly resonant tree which he's using to announce his presence to females and other males.

Look, listen and feel and it's different every day.

SaveSave