Hi Kevin,
I've been rather busy so I haven't had time to respond to your question
about the bumblebees.
Many kinds of bees and other kinds of insects go to damp ground to suck up
minerals and salts. Male insects need these nutrients in order to make
sperm for reproduction.
You must have happened upon these bees just as they were ready to mate.
Thanks so much for the wonderful pictures!
Sincerely,
Marlene
In a message dated 7/8/2011 12:28:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The boys and I returned to the Reddish Knob area today. One goal was to
better document the bees at the fork in the road to Reddish Knob and
Flagpole. A number of you wrote asking if we had taken pictures. We took
photos this morning symbolizing what we saw Wednesday. The bee numbers
were
somewhat reduced this morning, as we did not get any rain overnight as we
had Wednesday. The bees are obviously attracted to the moisture. You can
see the photos at this link, and read captions for guestimates:
http://www.naturefriendmagazine.com/photos.pl?catid=104
We also saw eight species of warbler this morning, including; redstart,
black-throated green, black-throated blue, black and white, chestnut-sided,
worm-eating, yellow-rump, and Canada.
We saw four grouse, including one chick. I suspect there were other chicks
with the one bird and chick we saw.
Kevin Shank
Rockingham Co.
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