On Saturday, after a morning in the garden, I was sitting having my lunch in the conservatory when a big bumblebee blundered in to the window (as they do!).
It then careered into a spider's web (their other party trick), which was clearly very much in use, its wide-awake owner excitedly quivering above the big bee, presumably waiting for the bee to tie itself in knots before moving in for the sting.
I decided that a dopey queen bee, just out of hibernation, deserved a mercy mission, so I went out and hooked it out of the web with a stick.
I was expecting to find a bee with yellow stripes and a buff or white coloured tail, so was surprised to see that it was actually all black except for a rich rufous back and white tail. Bumblebees can be difficult to identify, but this one is easy - the Tree Bee Bombus hypnorum.
She's a little bit bald and ruffled, but then she has been asleep for many months.
This is a bee that wasn't recorded in the UK until 2001, when it was found on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border. It took a few years to get properly established in that area, but then has just gone bananas over the last five years or so. It has now been seen across most counties of south-eastern, central and eastern England, is now into Wales, and there's no signs of it stopping either. Common on the Continent, there is every reason to believe that it arrived here naturally, and is a new but nevertheless valid part of our native fauna
It is an early season bee, so definitely one to watch out for right now. The queen will find a cavity above ground, such as a bird nest box, and raise her workers, with the colony at its peak by June.
At a time when the news about many of our bumblebees is bad, it's good to know that one is doing especially well.
The recommendation from 'Wildlife Friendly' for Winter Honeysuckle, in her response to my previous blog about winter flowers for pollinating insects, was very timely. Only the week before I had been in Regent's Park in the snow and yet a bumblebee had been busy at Winter Honeysuckle in the Avenue Gardens.
Watching it doing 'aerobics' with its legs, it was clear that it was taking pollen as well as nectar.
Nearby, what was hugely encouraging was to see that even now in February the Royal Parks gardeners had left the dried stems and seedheads all in place along the herbaceous borders.
So many gardens would have cleared all this at the end of October 'to be tidy'. And yet here with all the 'deadness' left in place it was providing so much life.
Some of that life was wildlife, with Wrens, Dunnocks, Robins and Blackbirds are rootling around in amongst the dead stems.
But some of the life was the gentle textures and warm golden hues provided by all the dead stems.
It's so easy to think that flowers have no more use once the flowers fade, but here's proof - to my eyes at least - that their value lives on in so many ways.
There's a term used in the study of bird migration called Zugunruhe. Translated from the German, it means the restlessness ('unruhe') as birds prepare for their seasonal travels ('Zug'). They effectively get jittery, impatient.
I'm wondering whether therefore I've got Fruhlingunruhe. If my made-up German is correct, it would mean a restlessness as I prepare for Spring. Out in the garden this weekend, I was just willing things to grow and bloom, and for butterflies and bees to emerge.
But maybe I should contain my impatience for I've still got loads to get done before Spring arrives.
For example, this weekend the job list included:
And with all that done, I stopped to enjoy the subtle beauty of this little trio.
Most prominent is Arum italicum pictum with its marbled leaves. I grow it in part for its red berries later in the year for the Blackbirds, in part just for the drama of all that pattern.
In the middle of them is a limey-leaved Heuchera, which will provide some bee nectar later in the season.
And behind it the purpurea version of our native Wood Spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides. I'm not sure yet what value it is bringing to wildlife in my garden but I'm giving it a chance!
It's the kind of little aesthetic moment that would get quite eclipsed once Spring is fully underway, but it's things like this in the winter garden that make my Fruhlingunruhe feel not so bad after all.
While my eyes were entertained by all the Redwings and Fieldfares at Wisley last weekend, my nose was kept busy too. Winter may not offer much in the way of visual plant spectacles, but here are some delightful odours to be sampled.
The Witch Hazels (Hamamelis) are right up there in the scent stakes, with their curious 'yellow-spider' flowers on the bare branches.
This is a shrub that does best on acid soils, although give it good, deep soil and it can cope on chalky soils. They looked glorious in the woodlands at Wisley.
Another sweet-smeller is Winter Sweet (Chimonanthus praecox), which grows to be a head-high shrub that, once mature, produces dark-centred yellow nodding flowers, or in the case of the variant 'Luteus' that I photographed (below), the flowers are all yellow. Grow against a south facing wall to get the best from it.
Other shrubs to fill the cold air with welcome perfume now include Sweet Box (Sarcococca humilis) and Winter Honeysuckles.
But how good are their flowers for wildlife? Well, last Saturday it was so cold that no insects were abroad to try them out - you can still see the frost on the flowers in the photos. And they do flower at a time of year when very few insects are out and about at the best of weather.
Nevertheless, I do have records (on warmers winter days) of Honeybees at all of the flowers I've mentioned, and bumblebees at Winter Honeysuckle, and hoverflies at Witch Hazel. With the weather warming up a touch this week, I'd be grateful for any observations you may have on winter blooms in your garden.
Saturday's forecast was for one of those glorious, sun-filled, crisp winter days, the kind of day to pull the thermals on and make the absolute most of. So I got up early and headed for one of my favourite places, the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley.
There was so much to see and do that I spent over seven hours there and only left because they were ringing the bell for closing time. There were wonderful early bursts of colour to enjoy from plants such as the Witch Hazels (Hamamelis) and Chimonanthus.
Apart from the tropical butterflies in the glasshouse, I didn't see a single insect. But I saw plenty of birds - Siskins, Nutchatches, Dunnocks and Robins, and a Treecreeper.
However, the 'main event' of the day was the thrushes. I found Redwings and Fieldfares feeding on the dried up fruit of crab apples Malus 'Evereste' and Malus hupensis. And they were on Davidia too. But the biggest numbers were all feeding underneath and in a Himalayan Pear tree Pyrus pashia. They were like bees around a honeypot, joined at the feast by Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Chaffinches, Robins, Blue Tits, Great Tit and Long-tailed Tits.
And they were so engrossed (and hungry) that some of them, like this Redwing, were quite fearless of the passers-by only a few metres away.
What I loved most was that all sorts of people stopped while I was photographing to ask what they were and to admire them. It seemed that more people lingered here than anywhere else in the garden (except in the hothouse!). "I've never seen one before", they'd say. Or just, "Aren't they beautiful!"
Looking at this Fieldfare, I couldn't agree more :-)