First flowers and bees of the year!

On the way to school today, I stopped at the bird feeders to see if there were any birds around. Like the last time, there was nothing except flies.

Before I went into the building, I went to the hills behind it searching for anything. I came across 10 cents, a fork, a broken door knob, and this group of yellow daisy-like flowers, and on the flowers are bees! They are my first flowers and bees of the year (although I did saw a bee outside my window earlier today as well).

I believe this is a sweat bee (Family Halictidae). This is a fairly small bee, about less than 10mm in length. On the wing, you can sort of make out the two submarginal cells.

Somewhat shiny and dull metallic green in colour.

A fly, not a bee. The bees hang around the flowers for longer periods of time than this fly, although this was the only fly I saw.

The bees were putting their heads deep into the bases of the flowers to drink the nectar.

Pollen grains on the top of the head.

Cute little guy (I think). On one of the photos, I counted 13 antennal segments, which indicate a male (whereas females have 12 segments).

After heading home around 18:30, there was a male Northern Cardinal perched near the bike path, and singing a different tune than the one I am used to. Sorry, no video this time, as I was busy taking my first photos of NOCA ever!

Handsome bird

Backlighting and branches in between made this an average photo. I swear I will (i.e. hope to) get a good photo soon.

Then there were ten Turkey Vultures circling in the sky. Don't think there was a kill nearby. It could be because the wind was strong and flying is easy then. I don't think I will ever come across a closer photo of TUVU than this one from more than two years ago.

Life is so busy that it feels good to have rewarding breaks like these, e.g. bees, cardinals, vultures, etc.