June 2010

June’s busy start continued right through the months.  There were a number of highlights, one of which was revisiting two flower-rich sites among the Dunnet Bay dunes, identified by Murdo Macdonald in 1999.  Queen great yellow bumblebees were present at both sites, which was fabulous.  At the south end of the dunes there is a good range of flower species, and the bees here were using red clover (see photo).  The other site is dominated by kidney vetch, and supports a healthy small blue colony (another UK BAP species).  The same evening we also held a training day for volunteers, starting at the Seadrift visitor centre (well worth a visit) and then moving out into the dunes.  Also in Caithness, the pollen and nectar seed mixes sown in May had germinated well, and the different components could be clearly picked out among the arable wildflowers. 

In Sutherland, there was an enthusiastic turn out for my talk in the village hall, and Donald Mitchell reported a great yellow bumblebee feeding on kidney vetch by the Durness visitor centre.  This was the first spring queen reported in the area since 2005, when one was seen at the same place (and two seen nearby) by a visiting entomologist.  An assessment of the diversity and abundance of flowers along the north Sutherland coast was particularly encouraging, especially in the Kyle of Tongue (a National Scenic Area dominated by the dramatic Ben Loyal).  There is a historic record from the Kyle (1974) and it is a crucial gap in the known modern distribution of great yellow bumblebee on the UK mainland.

The month finished in celebration of National Insect Week where my great yellow bumblebee work started two years ago, on the Inner Hebridean islands of Coll and Tiree.  These islands are the only places in Scotland where you can regularly see all three of Scotland’s priority bumblebee species: great yellow, moss carder (of the striking Hebridean form) and red-shanked carder. On Coll, we also now have the start of a bumblebee recording group, which is fantastic news.  There was an encouraging number of sightings of spring queen great yellow bumblebees, including one that had ventured into a local restaurant on Tiree (Ceabhar).  For the safari we had a glorious day at Balephetrish dunes - much better weather than when we were filmed in advance of the National Lottery Awards!  We saw several queen great yellow bumblebees, including ones collecting pollen (kidney vetch again) and also prospecting for nest sites.  We also found a Barbut’s cuckoo bumblebee Bombus barbutellus - present on Coll but this appears to be a ‘first’ for Tiree!  Across Gunna Sound, a queen buff-tailed bumblebee B. terrestris was a ‘first’ for Coll which seemed very out of place among the dunes. My ‘bumblebee safaris’ complemented talks by Darren Mann on the amazing oil beetles that had been discovered on Coll, and which rely on solitary bees for part of their life cycle.  I also had the great pleasure of meeting up with Donald MacKinnon of the Scottish Agricultural College, and visiting a number of crofts on Tiree that were considering applying to agri-environment schemes.  It is hard not to be enthralled by the islands, with basking sharks offshore and a rich diversity of birds (I came across a female corncrake and two young chicks on the roadside).  A long-tailed skua was a delight as it sailed along a beach on Tiree as I was busy counting red-shanked carder bee queens, and although there was some uncertainty as to whether I could leave the islands (the regular ferry was out of action), in the end it was probably for the best that I returned to Stirling!

 

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