Beautiful Bluebells and more in Dalkeith Country Park

 We always like to visit Dalkeith Country Park when the bluebells are in full bloom and we were very lucky with our trip yesterday. The bluebells were definitely at their best. 

as were a host of other Spring flowers, including Ramsons (Wild Garlic) 

(Wild Garlic is a favourite of foragers, to the extent that it is disappearing from many areas in the UK. If you do forage this plant, as with any other foraging, please do not uproot it and take only as many leaves as you need. Even better, forage Few Flowered Leek which is an invasive species, taking over from Wild Garlic in many places, but tastes just as good.

 The photo above shows Few Flowered Leek in bloom).

Other flowers in bloom included Wood Anemones 

 Wood Sorrel

Greater Stitchwort

and Lesser Celandine

Dalkeith Country Park is also rightly famous for its ancient oak trees

While we were walking around we were fascinated to find a group of solitary bees. There were two species here, one a larger species, a mining bee probably Andrena clarkella

and a smaller species of parasitic nomad bee (probably Nomada goodeniana)

The nomad bees were hanging around the nesting area of the mining bees, waiting for a chance to enter the nest holes. (Mining bees don't live in hives, but excavate individual nest holes where they lay their eggs, the parasitic bees then also lay their eggs in the same nest holes. There are usually a lot of nest holes of the same species in a small area, but the fact that each bee makes its own individual nest hole is why these species are known as solitary bees).