Solitary bees at Nymans 🐝

National Trust Nymans, June 2024

Nymans is a National Trust garden in the western edge of the High Weald. There are great views across Mid Sussex towards the South Downs. This visit was just for a general walk, but it quickly dawned on me that it could be a chance for some macro.

I had my Olympus 12-45mm lens with me which can work really well as a macro lens. Bingo!

Nymans has a lovely array of rock gardens and extravagant flowering borders.

The common spotted orchids were peaking, as you can see, the flowers turning to seed.

I realised this visit could be interesting for macro when we spotted this caterpillar munching on a knapweed leaf. It’s the larva of a sawfly, rather than a moth or butterfly.

Elsewhere on the knapweed was this small robberfly. I love seeing this striking group of flies, they make great subjects. They also strike, in the predatory sense.

I’ve seen loads of alder leaf beetles since moving to Sussex but I usually see them in towns. It’s always nice to see one in a meadow.

There were a number of small bees around. I think this is one of the bronze furrow bees.

In the head of a meadow cranesbill was this rather dozy little solitary bee. I pulled the petal to the side, as you can see here, to see if it had been caught by a spider. It hadn’t, it was just still.

Nymans has rose gardens, where I found this solitary bee trying to make sense of the maze of petals. Life, eh?

Thanks for reading.

Macro