Common Sunflower, Great Basin Bumble Bee and Long-horned Bee, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, UtahCommon Sunflower, Great Basin Bumble Bee and Long-horned Bee – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/2000, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

When I am not photographing birds I always look around to see what other life I can place in my viewfinder because I know that everything in the natural world is connected.

When I was at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge three days ago I enjoyed seeing all of the blooming Common Sunflowers and while they are in bloom I can’t resist taking photos of their bright, sunshine colored blooms. Sometimes when I take photographs of the sunflowers I get just the sunflowers themselves, other times I find pollinators on them and when I do I get excited. We need our pollinators and taking photos of them is my way of celebrating their lives.

When I photographed this Common Sunflower I noticed the Great Basin Bumble Bee right away then I saw the other bee and what appears to be two midges on the upper left quadrant of the flower petals.

Great Basin Bumble Bees (Bombus centralis) are also unofficially called Central Bumble Bees but I think the name Great Basin Bumble Bee is more fitting because I do live and photograph in the Great Basin.

The other bee is a Long-horned Bee of the tribe Eucerini and that is as far as I was able to narrow down the ID. The male Long-horned Bees have unusually long antennas. The one I photographed is a male. I’ll post a photo or two of it cropped in tighter to iNaturalist to see if I can get a more specific ID.

I admit to being excited by the Long-horned Bee, I believe this is the first time I’ve photographed a male!

Bees fascinate me. Nature delights me.

Life is good. Stay safe.

Mia

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