A rook, with its coat of many colours

 I'd always thought of rooks as birds with uniform black plumage, until this one landed in a tree outside my window and the early morning sun highlighted the iridescence in its feathers, particularly around its head. Look closely and you can see a blue, purple and green lustre, depending on the angle of the light.

A brief glimpse .... and then it was gone

 It's often the case that the briefest of glimpses of an animal are the wildlife encounters that stick in the memory. Here are three recent chance encounters, that lasted only for a few seconds

I saw something moving in the grass under some young oaks, but couldn't quite make out what it was ..... and then this magnificent jay, with its exquisite blue wing feathers, flew up into the branches. It paused for a couple of seconds and then was gone

I'd been watching this kestrel hovering and stooping along the sea cliffs near Hawthorn Dene on the Durham coast. I lost sight of it then, as I drew near, it flew up from the grass with a small mammal in its talons and disappeared over the edge of the cliff

I was walking through Auckland park in Bishop Auckland, along the edge of what must once have been a broad ditch, when this hare that had been lying low leapt up from almost under my feet and dashed away into a hawthorn thicket.

Dark-edged bee-fly

 

Saw the first dark-edged bee-flies Bombylius major in the garden at the beginning of this week, feeding on lesser celandine nectar. These cheerful little spring flowers have spread all over the garden and I gave up trying to control them long ago, as their nectar supplies quite a few early-emerging insects, including bees, butterflies and hoverflies. 

The agility of hyperactive bee-flies is wonderful to watch. They rarely settle for more than a minute or two. The image below shows a curious feature of the rigid proboscis, which is three-pronged at the tip - I imagine there is a protective outer sheath surrounding the long inner tongue.

Bee-flies parasitize the nesting tunnels of mining bees, laying their eggs in flight in the mouth of the tunnel. When they hatch they feed on the grub of the bee host. Unfortunate for the host, but the bee-flies presence must be a sign of a healthy mining bee population in the garden.