29th July 2009

Back up north, to Caithness this time.  Picked up an excellent wee van from Jacks of Inverness, and headed up towards Thurso.  I decided, for no good reason, to detour around Halkirk before dropping my bags at the B&B.  There was a bit of red clover flowering along the verge, so, inspired by the association of Great Yellow Bumblebee with this flower on the Western Isles, I stopped and walked along the roadside.  The surrounding fields were not where I would expect to see Great Yellows, but there were half-a-dozen scattered patches of clover.  At the last patch, having seen a couple of Garden Bumblebees, I knelt down to tie a bootlace that had come undone.  Suddenly, there was movement to my right – a Great Yellow Bumblebee!  Not only that, but this looked like a new queen: large, and fresh, undamaged wings.  There is a recent record from even further inland, again within reach of the River Thurso, but I was amazed, and delighted!  I met Phyllida and Tom Sayles for supper in Castletown, and afterwards looked at a flower-rich area just outside the town.  Plenty of bees included two Buff-tailed Bumblebee workers, hot on the heels of at least two spring queens earlier this year.