OVER the Easter break, I took the opportunity to take the family out to one of our local nature reserves.

The site of choice was Burlish Top as our little girl is only two and the relatively level paths, and generally open nature of the site, make it ideal for her to wander around and explore.

The weather had brought the European Gorse into full bloom and the smell of coconut oil it produced was an added bonus. Like me, my daughter is crazy about insects, and it wasn’t long before something caught her eye. She had stopped to look at, and smell the gorse flowers. As she moved her hand forward to touch one of the small, yellow, pea-like flowers, she suddenly jumped.

Thinking she’d spiked her finger on one of the plant’s many sharp spines, I crouched next to her to take a look. It was then I realised what had happened. The flower she had approached had come to life. Within the centre lived a small spider.

While I have seen similar spiders in the past, I have never seen one that is such a vivid yellow. They fall into the spider family ‘thomisidae’ or the ‘crab spiders’, so named for they’re flattened appearance, sideways walking motion, and they’re first two pairs of legs are rather longer than the rest, and when held out sideways, look a little crab like. They come in shades of yellow and green, the females often with a vivid red stripe along their back.

Eventually, as is the way with two year olds, she lost interest in the crab spider and began to walk a little further on. There was a stunning variety of butterflies, the ragged Comma, Large White, Orange tip, Peacock, Brimstone and Speckled Wood and also a wonderful array of bee species.

The little one was fascinated by the large queen bumble bees stumbling around trying to find the warmest spots on the path and laughed continually as they clumsily fell over. At this point something caught my attention. Sunning itself on one of the waymarker posts was a rather unusual looking bee with a long tongue/proboscis.

Actually, it wasn’t a bee at all, but a bee-fly. I have seen them before, but not very often at all. Like bumble bees they are covered in hairs, but they are easily distinguishable by their drab colouration, single pair of wings and extremely long proboscis which is held straight out in front. The bee-like appearance may help as a disguise for it lays its eggs in the underground nests of solitary bees and wasps, where its larvae will eventually consume the host larvae.