Image: Bombus lucorum 12.04.20
A very proper bumble bee, with a yellow stripe and a white bum, crawled under a log after a lot of dithering about. I had been trespassing and was now nearing the public right of way in order to rejoin it. Hunkered down out of sight while I waited for some incredibly loud, male ramblers to pass on their way (are there any other kind?), from this angle I enjoyed a bumble bee’s eye view.
In terms of access, the 1968 Countryside Act qualifies woodland as ‘open country’. Of course in Tory Britain there’s no knowing how long this will last and if, as a woman alone, I can fearlessly/safely face irate, pheasant-rearing, water-polluting, entitled land-owners, armed with only my ‘right of access’. As a child I ‘trespassed’ freely. It was my land. But something changed. As a woman I have more fears. I think they were late in developing and are justified. When I walk through woodland I struggle to pay attention as I did as a child. Instead I pay high-alert attention, like prey, scanning the foliage, scanning sounds, for phantom figures and footsteps and worse of all, for real ones.
As I crouch out of sight of these, no-doubt, harmless walkers, my bumble bee’s behaviour catches my attention; it seems to be anxiously searching around an area devoid of flowers, as if looking for lost keys. Its engine abruptly cut out and I watch as she swiftly crawls into nowhere and vanishes. Introducing Bombus lucorum.
While I reflect on this conjuror’s trick, a more business-like relative busies past me, even louder than the last, mostly black with a striking red tail: Bombus lapidarius. Now here we go. I’ve got my ‘eye-in’. I am paying attention. I am caught up, by bees…
Redtail flew low over the compact earth of the animal track on which I was waiting; dust and twigs, leaf fragments and dry earth scuttling away either side, blown away by the force of its flight, like a helicopter near landing. A fast flier when it has a mind.
The ramblers were long gone before I resumed my way. I had spent some time here in bee city, among haphazard flight paths, some flowers getting more attention than others. I have read that when a flower is heavily loaded with pollen its UV light shines brighter, acting as a lighthouse to nectar hunters. When it is temporarily depleted it shines duller and so this perhaps explains why some flowers get pounced on while other, equally healthy looking bluebells to my human eyes, are entirely skipped. No time wasters here. Shit to do.
I came away thinking- here is a world. Bees! I can bee-watch! There are too few birds in my lockdown garden (reluctant to feed the birds with an imminent house-move on the cards- I am anxious not to create a reliant community), but bees abound!
On route home to my bee research, newly arrived swallows with travel-stained white bibs, skim over the rough grass of the grazed field. Their backs and V tails shimmering blue/black, flashing their orange throats. They zip through the air, netting tiny insect life in their open beaks. I like to think of them as the parallels of Start Bay Basking Sharks, scooping plankton of the air. Every April I start watching for their return. Here in South Devon (in recent years), they arrive between the 7th and the 12th. This year they arrived in the village on the 8th. The relief that they’ve made it heightens each year. It’s not spring without swallows tattooing the sky and hammering their summery, metallic, ball-bearing call into the blue.
Proverb: one swallow does not a summer make.
After a little googling I find that there are 16 kinds of bee in all of the British Isles, but it’s something to be going on with. I can expand into wasps, hover flies, flies and beyond. Or not.
I can hear the sea from my caravan. And occasionally lowing cattle. And for a change, no night traffic. I am locking down into paying attention.
