I like the goat captions!
Now for a much smaller but still important member of our wildlife.
On Saturday I saw my first bumblebee of the season - a queen buff tailed bumblebee. This is a very bad photo of a buff tailed queen but not the one I saw on Saturday - she was too quick for me (to be honest, most of them are too quick for me!). Bumblebees are the big, furry, colourful ones, while honeybees and solitary bees are generally slimmer and plain brown, and the buff tails are usually the first to emerge in spring.
Only queen bumblebees survive over winter, so each queen represents a potential colony. When a queen first emerges she will be looking for two things: food and somewhere to nest. Early flowering plants will be important to provide the pollen and nectar which she needs, while a bee flying low and "quartering" the ground will be searching for a nest site. Some species, like the buff tail, nest below ground e.g. in abandoned mouse holes, while others net above ground in dry grass etc.
Bumblebees having been having a hard time, mainly due to habitat loss and some of the UK species are endangered. The website of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust gives more information on bumblebees, including good plants for bumblebees:
http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/ If you belong to a group which has invited speakers, I give a talk on "The Plight of the Bumblebee" on behalf of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and I'd be delighted to answer questions such as:
How is the bumblebee sniffer dog helping bee conservation?
Why are bumblebees' smelly feet useful?
What do male bumblebees do in bad weather?
