My plan never came to fruition, however. I was lucky enough to get a summer contract as a warden on Scolt Head Island for what was English Nature in 1995. After that contract finished, I got a short-term contract for Dersingham Bog, which eventually lasted almost a year and so I spent another summer away from Holme.
I never got to try a bumblebee transect out at Holme and after I had finished at Dersingham, I decided to start putting down roots and get a permanent job away from nature conservation and the transect idea faded away. I still kept it in the back of my mind, but after moving away from the Holme area, had nowhere to actually do it.
Then, in 2010, I discovered what has now become my local patch. It was ideally situated close to home and I immediately came up with plenty of ideas about what I was going to do. My main interest back then was mainly just for the birds, but the idea of a bee transect immediately came to mind. At the same time, the Bee Conservation Trust were asking for people to volunteer for what they call a BeeWalk - which is essentially a bee transect. I immediately registered my interest and started planning my route.
As enthusiastic as I was about it, I came across two problems. My bumblebee ID had become way too rusty. It is definitely true when they say "Use it or Lose it" when it comes to species identification. So I set about trying to learn the species again, but came up against the second problem - work. At the very same time, I started being inundated with overtime and I ended up missing most of the summer and lost my opportunity to get my eye in and set up my route.
In 2011, I set up a butterfly transect route and have been regularly recording the butterflies ever since. I knew I could use the same route for the bees, but I had moved locations with my work and I was doing even more overtime and was regularly working late shifts and didn't have the time to do any additional surveys.
But today, I finally managed to do my first bee transect. I set off with my net, sample bottles and ID guides and expected to spend most of the day bogged down in keys. But I actually found it much easier than I thought it would be and didn't actually need to catch anything or get bogged down in the key.
The weather wasn't the best that it could have been, but I think I managed to complete the transect just in time. I had been watching the weather for today all week and all was set to be sunny and warm - ideal for bees. Until this morning. The weather forecast was now cold and wet, but it was still sunny outside my window. It did keep clouding over and the threat of rain was high at times, so I stalled my start so I could see what was going to happen.
Nothing really did happen, so I decided to risk it and set off to the starting point. The sun shone for most of the walk and I managed to record both white-tailed and buff-tailed bumblebee queens quite easily. I was even able to check the bees higher up that were encoring off the willow flowers and identify them without any problems.
Although the numbers weren't exactly numerous, the transect was a complete success. The totals from each section can be found on the link at the top of the page. But almost at the exact moment that I finished, it clouded over and started to rain and didn't stop for the rest of the day. It also turned much colder and I didn't see a single bumble bee on my return walk home. In by the skin of my teeth!
Whilst walking back home, I stumbled on a cup shaped fungus. I have no idea what it is and I have never seen anything like it before. I have put a copy of the photo onto I-Spot, so I will hopefully have some kind of answer soon.
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