In search of tiny things
#10—A short exercise in observation.
Welcome to Mind Flexing, your weekly thought expedition to everywhere and anywhere. Strap on your boots (or put your feet up), take a deep breath, and let’s get flexing.
The blue banded bee was examining the westringia near the backstep when I first saw it, catching me off guard, firstly with excitement, because it was only the second time I had seen a blue banded bee in my garden, and secondly, because it was buzzing about the white flowers. I had long thought they liked only blue and purple varieties, of which I have plenty.
The bee—an Australian native, striped a bright metallic blue against black on its well-rounded rump, and with a teddy-bear-like head of golden fur—stopped and rested momentarily near my foot, and then I saw another, and another, and I could hear all three singing their little buzz song, which resonated at a higher note than the song of the European honeybees elsewhere in the westringia.
I declare this little creature to be the world’s most adorable bee, but I invite you to prove me wrong.
Until this moment, I had only seen a blue banded bee once, last summer, down in the French lavender by the tomatoes and zucchinis. It was a fleeting moment. So to see three together, staying with me, was exhilarating. You see, I’d always been a little disgruntled that my garden lacked these rather common native bees. Everyone else had them, so it seemed.
The sightings got me thinking, what other tiny things are in my garden that I’ve been missing?
So today, I’ve set myself a little exercise in observation; a task to pay attention to the small things around me. I’m taking my camera into the garden and not only going in search of blue banded bees, but any other little pollinators I can find. After all my recent posts about all the things we don’t notice, I’m keen to see if I can discover something new to me.
The pollinators among us
A few years ago I was surprised to learn, from a source I’ve since forgotten, that moths are fantastic pollinators. It had never occurred to me to consider them so. The same goes for many of our garden insects: butterflies, wasps, beetles, grasshoppers, ants and even flies! While I am too tormented by blow flies to want to give them pollinating credit (yes, I begrudgingly admit, they are pollinators, too), there are quite a few species of very adorable fly that make great pollinators, like hoverflies and a teeny blue fly in my grevilia that I saw earlier this morning. Some bird species, like lorikeets and honeyeaters, and animals, like flying foxes, bats and possums, make decent pollinators, too (if there’s anything left of the flower).
We often picture European honeybees when it comes to pollination. They are, indeed, incredible pollinators. They’re not too fussy and will visit almost any flower, which is important because three-quarters of the world’s flowering plants need pollinators to survive. This resourcefulness is compounded by the ginormous size of their colonies—up to 80,000 in one hive—capable of pollinating pretty much everything in sight. And, they make honey, sweet sugary honey, so the human race will always love them.
Honeybees are so good at what they do that we, creatures of easy habit, often overlook the hard work of other insects. Besides, they don’t make honey, so we take little notice.
There are over 2,000 species of native bee in Australia, mostly solitary little creatures who live in small holes in wood or mud and probably like to read books. Living a single life means they don’t store hives of honey. There are a couple of exceptions, like the Australian native stingless bee, which does produce enough honey to harvest, but in smaller quantities than their European counterpart. Unfortunately for me, they don’t like the cold and would die of hypothermia if I were to attempt to bring them south to my yard.
Meanwhile, according to the CSIRO, there are about 30,000 types of fly in Australia (of which only 6,400 have been described), about 10,000 species of wasp, 22,000 species of Lepidoptera—which are moths and butterflies—and up to 100,000 beetle species. Many of these small creatures have never been named or described.
Let’s go see which native pollinators I can find in the garden today.
Never work with bugs or children
Rightio, I’m back, and after an hour in the garden, I can tell you, trying to get little buzzing creatures to fly still for a photograph is like asking a cockatoo to shush. What I’ve captured is just a snippet of what I saw. Butterflies and wasps, in particular, are very good at escaping a viewfinder. One of my favourite, hoverflies, which are often quite prolific in my garden, were quite elusive today. I only saw two, one of which came to visit me while hanging out the washing knowing full well I didn’t have my camera.
I also saw a wonderful black and grey leaf cutter bee down in the lemon tree, but have no proof for you here, unfortunately.
There were, of course, plenty of European honeybees, European wasps, cabbage white butterflies, and common black ants, but let’s keep it interesting and focus on the lesser known pollinators, because I’m relieved to say, I found some! My blue banded bees included.
First in the picture above, is the blue banded bee (Amegilla cingulata), which filled every corner of the garden today. It’s wonderful. Whatever it is about this year that has seen them flourish, I hope it continues. Blue banded bees are solitary bees, are about 11mm long, and like to live in mud burrows. They make exceptional pollinators because they can shake the hard-to-reach pollen out of flowers. They’re rapid little things, more so than the other bees, and very hard to capture on camera.
Next along is a reed bee, which is about 8mm long. There were an enormous number of these amber beauties enjoying the rosemary today. They are considered to be social bees because they often live in pairs in nests they burrow into plant stems. These are not necessarily mating pairs, I believe; they just like to share the housework. Clever!
I’m not quite sure what the third bee pictured is, but the poor thing didn’t look too well. The last bee, I think, may be another reed bee, which can sometimes have a black abdomen. I may be wrong, so if you’re a bee expert, chime in.
Here we move on to butterflies. These were a little hard to identify, so if you know what they are, let me know. The first and last (clockwise from top) are Skippers. From what I can tell, Australia does have native skippers, but image-search results of the ones in my garden keep sending me to North America, so I’m not so certain. I have no idea what the third one, clockwise from the top, might be.
The caterpillar is a papilio anactus, which is eating my lime tree more so than pollinating it at the moment, but it will turn into a dainty swallowtail butterfly, which is a native, and they’re just beautiful.
Here’s a collection of other little critters I found. The second along is a native leaf beetle (aporocera scabrosa). It was quite small, about 6mm long, and resting in the rosemary. I can honestly say, I have never noticed one of these before, so my exercise in discovery has been successful.
From the top is a species of native stink bug, the leaf beetle, a passionvine hopper (scolypopa australis), a striped ladybeetle, also a native, and a grasshopper, which I can’t identify as invasive or native.
The passionvine hopper, despite the crappy photo, was rather exquisite with transparent windows in its wings. I had seen one of these before, but didn’t know what they were until now. Reading about them, I see their young are called fluffy bums.
And now to the flies and wasp. The first along appears to be an anomopsocus amabilis, which I can’t confirm as being native but it certainly looks like one found in North America.
Second along is the boatman fly (pogonortalis doclea), which is a native and a very entertaining one at that. I watched a pair arch their wings like bulls horns and charge each other. They are quite tiny at only 5mm.
I’m not entirely sure what the third, clockwise from top, is. Image search suggests it could be a tiger fly from New Zealand, but I couldn’t confirm if it is also native here.
And lastly, I found some native paper wasps building a nest under my gutter. Fantastic!
So there we have it. Something a little different this week, but it was enjoyable to get out and notice the tiny things that would normally pass me by.
I’m keen to know what you find.
Things I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack this past week:
Connecting to nature—by Michael Young
This cartoon gave me a good laugh, especially given my own little foray into nature. I won’t spoil it for you, it’s very short, so take a quick look.
The Dark Side of the Moon—by Hugh Lunn
A fascinating firsthand account of ‘The Act of Free Choice’ that handed West Papua to Indonesia in 1969, as told by Hugh as a foreign correspondent for Reuters.
An invasion of croquet—by Ann Kennedy Smith
Ann explores the attitude of Virginia Woolf’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, toward women attending the University of Cambridge.
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I’ll be back next week. Until then, keep 💪.
You have a very biodiverse garden, Alia! It gladdens the heart. I loved the photos and the line drawing. You are very good with a pencil!
We were amazed at the proliferation in insect life in our garden when we went organic about 20 years ago, then gradually stopped spraying altogether, about 15 years ago. The next big boost after that was becoming lazy gardeners: allowing veggies and herbs to go to seed, leaving rocks and branches and other things for critters to shelter in and under. We have a garden full of frogs, lizards, bees and various pollinators, usually ringtail and brushtail possums in residence or passing through. We also have two tall Warré beehives, with yes, probably about 80k bees apiece. Perhaps because we are beekeepers, we're not particularly sentimental about the honeybee, though we respect and like them. They're an invasive exotic here after all, taking over precious nest hollows.
The blue-banded bees in our garden seem partial to the hibertia and to tomatoes. With their high-pitched buzz they sound very like a European bee on the warpath, so they often give me a bit of a start.
Not to mention what tiny things are crawling over our body… It’s turtles (or at least microbiomes) all the way down