The shrill carder (Bombus sylvarum) is the bookmakers’ early favourite for invertebrate of the year. (I’m picturing a smooth, charming worm giving it the bookies’ patter and an embittered elderly grasshopper totting up the odds, disgruntled because his kind wasn’t nominated.)
Here flies one of our smallest bumblebees, a distinctive greyish-green and straw-hued species which is named after the high-pitched buzz it makes when airborne.
