Week 7 Extra: Tall Trees & Tiny Mites

I have been wanting to photograph the beautiful Common Alder (Alnus glutinous) on Harding's Moor for weeks. To get the composition I was after, I needed a sunny, mostly blue sky afternoon and also to be free at that time. Yesterday was almost T-shirt weather (15 deg C!) and my best opportunity. I also happened upon my first bee of the year, wriggling around in the grass, just beyond the tree. A female Red-tailed Bumblebee with unwelcome guests in the form of phoretic mites, around her neck.

Confession: The temptation to spend large sums of money I don't have on macro and landscape lenses is getting increasingly difficult to resist. Go on…tell me you need to see every hair on that little bee's red butt and that your life depends on being able to count the individual lenses of its compound eyes…no?…oh, ok, I shall resist.