April 21 Facebook 2025

Golden Easter Time 




Golden for Easter – a hopeful shaft of light; an early flower of sunshine and insect riches (but sometimes a little too enthusiastic in its dispersal!); a golden daffodil showering its pollen onto a feasting Bumble Bee; a carpet of woodland gold – Yellow Archangel, 

feeding another bumble and a flash of fungal gold amongst the surrounding carpet of dead leave

Forget-me-not’s central golden rings guide a freshly emerged Red Mason Bee to vital nectar energy whilst a Beefly hovers in to join the banquet 


In the herb bed amongst the wild marjoram, targets of gold against white promise wild strawberries to come... for birds, molluscs and humans. And in the veg patch, more promise of summer bounty... a Honeybee gathers nectar for honey, so pollinating Red Currants for the delight of humans and Blackbirds ... all photos of the week before Easter.

Enjoy the end of April full of joy in wild plants and creatures!

Wild Gardening Tips:


Even in a garden, a mini shaded patch can turn into a tiny touch of woodland. Here... White Dead Nettle beloved by bees, alongside sheltering ivy and nettles which are vital to so many butterfly larvae (most attractive to them if in a sunnier spot, so time to translocate!) In our little garden patch of ‘woodland’ is the twig pile which slowly accumulates as stray twigs are gathered and thrown from grass and mini meadows. This heap is now a waist high shelter for small mammals and inverts; and here and there are the lichens and fungi, so vital to the ecosystem.

 One of the many, very special, very efficient fruit pollinators just out of its nursery tube in one of our bee hotels (see a previous post)


 & 


 One of the fast bee imposters that is impossible to photo in focus! But spot the difference: no waist and ‘fixed’ long tongue projecting straight.

Conservation Tip: Wild Strawberry  has joined the near threatened list in England due to habitat loss of wildflower meadows. It is not yet endangered, but like so many previously common species of plant, insect, bird and mammal, in today’s world the downwards path can accelerate with alarming speed...




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