Friday 23 May 2008

Blue tit Foxgloves and Bumble Bee

I saw for the first time a blue tit on the bird feeder at the end of my garden. Its a narrow garden that runs parallel with our bungalow and because its on a corner and steeped back, the bird flight paths take them behind our garden and they rarely visit (other than the big tree that hangs over from a garden behind). This was an experiment to encourage then from their flight path to detour into our garden. While the food has gone down and I have assumed some birds were eating it, this was the first proof it had worked.

My pride and joy in the garden at the moment are two foxgloves I grew from seed two years ago. I managed to keep two of the four going through last year (they don't flower the first year) and they are now looking quite stunning. I noticed a bee visiting this evening (so the flowers won't be around for long). My nan always had foxgloves in her garden when I was young and they were my favourite then.

2 comments:

mercedes said...

do bees typically die inside of foxgloves? if so, how come? is it a digitalis overdose?

Steve Savage said...

The foxglove is very poisounous is eaten. However it does not harm the bees. They feed on the flowers nectar and pollinate the plant at the same time. The flowers die once they have been visited (as their job has been done once the flower has been successfully pollinated)