Over the weekend life out on the windowsill has been positively buzzing. Yesterday one of our tomato plants was visited by a green stink bug. A little bit of Googling enlightened me to the very interesting story of Nezara viridula, which is an invasive species that was found in the UK for the first time six years ago and apparently now has a well established population in London. The bug is an African native but arrived over here as a stowaway in shipments of fruit and veg and has now been able to establish itself as a full-time UK resident due to the warmer weather we are receiving as a result of climate change.
Meanwhile over on the chilli plants we noticed a little cluster of orange eggs on the underside of one of the leaves. Turns out that these are ladybird eggs and a little later in the day there was a ladybird wandering across the plant. I wonder if it had come back to watch over it's brood...
And last but not least earlier on today I glimpsed some pollination in action with a bumblebee visitor to our tomato plant visiting each of the yellow flowers one by one. I've been trying to identify him using the ID guides on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website but am finding it rather tricky. If anyone can help me out with the identification that would be great. All in all though I'm very encouraged that even the small number of plants on our three tiny windowsills are doing their bit to help in the fight to save our bees and that the great pest-munching ladybirds are loving our windowsill garden as well.
