Following fragrance and frenzy

We are slowly tilting towards the sun’s warmth. Our neighbourhood is flushed with colour and fragrance. A frenzied relationship between flower-insect-bird is taking place: pollen movement and fertilisation for the plant and pollen protein and nectar energy for the pollinating insects and birds. The wild energy is understandable. Life is impermanent. The exchange is momentary.  

Ornamental cherry, lavender, magnolia, camelia, and rhododendron were the first noticeable signalers on berms, leaning over private fences. Now it’s the dreamy scents from the less obvious flowers of our native trees which are luring me and the pollinators. There’s the small cream, white or pale green florets of tarata (lemonwood), rangiora, tī kōuka/cabbage tree, pāpāuma/kāpuka/griselinia and the dark purple/red of kōhūhū, karo and the stunning spiky orbs of rewarewa. Frustratingly I can’t follow everywhere the bees, moths, beetles and flies go, up high or deep into bushes or in other people’s gardens.

One day though, I gingerly follow intense humming into a thick tarata, slowly wedging sideways through dense branches. It’s a dappled green tent inside, full of tiny pale green florets exuding perfume! Bees zoom in and out either side frantically probing into the flowers. I keep still not wanting to be stung accidentally and spot another visitor, a bright steelblue ladybird. The adults feed on nectar in addition to scale and whitefly.

Photo gallery: Clockwise from top left: Inside a dense tarata tree its tiny flowers exude perfume attracting frenzied bees and steelblue ladybird. Tī kōuka/cabbage trees with creamy spears attract a mass of small insects. Grass moth on lavender – these moths pollinate native plants too. Small fly in the centre of winged fruit and petal-less female flowers of akeake. Kōhūhū flowers hanging over our neighbour’s fence have a dreamy fragrance, especially in the evening. Delicate flower branchlets of rangiora are a draw card to moths and other small native pollinators.