The bee-fly is a true sprite of spring

Croft Castle, Herefordshire The noble parasite is an actor in the uncanny drama of life feeding on life

She looks like a fly in a fur coat; her wings made of clear cellophane with black bat markings; her syringe proboscis not for piercing flesh but sipping nectar; she is either a blur of speed or a full stop. The bee-fly is a chimera of contradictions and as true a sprite of spring as any of the animals associated with the season.

Sunlight forms pools under the ancient trees in the park at Croft Castle in Herefordshire. The great trunks of sweet chestnut trees, grown according to legend from chestnuts captured from Spanish ships at the Battle of Trafalgar, spiral on a bank above an oak that is a thousand years old. Its massive trunk, broken, bulging with the fearlessly mischievous expression of Pan himself, still sprouts living branches.