The Lyons Share

I've been having a look around Seaford Head today with Andy Phillips. It has been an amazing day and the weather was great. Most obvious were dozens of Hairy-footed Flower-bees Anthophora plumipes. You can see the huge proboscis and hairy-feet in the above photos. They are annoyingly fast and move between flowers slightly faster than the time the Cooplix 4500 takes to focus. I got quite fed up of stalking up on them, focusing the camera just as the bee flew off! I am surprised that I got these shots so I took this video of a male foraging as back up. Incidentally, we saw perhaps 25 to 30 of these today and they were all males. Hairy Violets (above) and Ground Ivy are clearly important nectar sources for these early-flying bees at Seaford.

I also found loads of these snails (and even a live one) which was a tick for me. The very nice Helicella itala.

11-spot Ladybirds are always nice to see.

A mating pair of Trochosa (terricola?). I originally put this down as ruricola in error.

The view along the cliffs back to the Seven Sisters is stunning. You can see the wind blown sand deposits (lowess) on top of the chalk in this photo. An important habitat on the site. It does make things look a bit 'Planet of the Apes' (thanks for that one Andy!). Isn't Sussex amazing?!

Of all the places we could chose to peer over the cliff edge, we chose a spot right next to two Peregrines!

However, the photo I was most pleased with was taken from inside an old building we found looking out. Like the Room from Stalker or something from the book House of Leaves. I was quite taken with this shot and I'm really pleased how it came out. Now, if anyone out there reading this also watches Andrei Tarkovsky films from the 1970s, you'll know the significance of the Room from the film Stalker. And that can lead to only one question: What did I wish for?..