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Sunday, August 9, 2020

Bumblebee drama

Today, a cloudburst and quick thunderstorm came and went in the middle of an otherwise sunny day. After it was over, I went out to photograph the wet fireweed in the stormy light:


The rain caught this bumblebee in the fireweed. She crawled to the underside of a blossom to ride it out, but it wasn't really great protection, so after it was over, she was soaking wet and unable to fly:

But Mother Nature trained her daughter. As soon as the sun came she oriented herself so that her back was at 90 degrees to the sun:

As she warmed up and regained agility, she went to the middle of several blossoms and collected some nectar as a snack:

She was still very exhausted and had to take frequent pauses:

She took several breaks to sit on horizontal surfaces and wipe herself down with her... arms? Front legs? Whatever you call them on a bee:


At this point, it was warm and dry, and the other insects had returned, including several types of bees and hoverflies. They all fed from adjacent blossoms and seemed to have no rivalry.  

 

Except for those horrible white-faced hornets! One came by and seemed to attack her, twice! But it didn't seem to faze her as she continued warming up. Finally, her fuzz got fluffy again, and she lifted up and took off into the sunshine. :)
 

3 comments:

mdr said...

Wow, a "report" people read from the National Geography magazine. When you were a little girl, you used to pick up potato bugs that crawled inside back to the garden. Leaving the bee alone was smart not to be stung by the stressed bee.

Rena said...

What a blessing to be able to take the time to observe nature. In school we call this "Small moment writing". Love it.

Arvay said...

Thank you both! Bumblebees are among my favorite critters!