Explore Outdoors ~ Pollinator Week!

 This week (June 21 - 27) is Pollinator Week! The entire week is dedicated to recognizing the unseen - and unsung - heroes of our world: bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, and other insects that pollinate our plants.

 

 Most people are familiar with honey bees and bumble bees pollinating flowers. But tons of flies do that work as well.

Sometimes you'll find different types of flies hanging out together on an umbel.

I often let part of my yard go wild. Buttercups blossom in the tall grass, and about three weeks ago I noticed a fly hanging out in the buttercups. I think this is a tachinid fly, and I've read that they pollinate buttercups. But this spring is the first time I've seen them - or at least paid attention to what the flies buzzing around me are doing.

Learn more about pollinator conservation over at the XERCES Society - and what you can to do save the bees, flies, and other insect pollinators.

And on Friday, join me for a look at Begin With a Bee, a new picture book about the rusty-patched bumble bee.