We finally have a hint of summer with temperatures rising after weeks of rain, wind and cold weather. Everything is looking quite green but nature seems to be a good couple of weeks behind at the moment, late blooming plants, late birds, late butterflies, it all has a knock on effect of course.
Not with the Starlings though, we had our first fledgling Starlings on the 11th, at the last count we had about 50 descend on the garden, about 90% were juveniles, this is the most we've counted so they are doing quite well. This includes our gutter Starlings which seem to have fledged without issue this year. We had fledgling Sparrows on the same day and a few more since but nowhere near as many as the Starlings. Since then the only other youngsters i've seen are Blue Tits in the woods. There are plenty of nests everywhere though so maybe we'll start to see more soon.
Standard fledgling pose from the House Sparrow
Starlings
After seeing a single Swift on the 10th it's taken till this week before the usual number are around and screaming up and down the street. There seems to have been an influx of them now thankfully and i'm seeing them all over town when i'm walking to work. Unfortunately the Swallows that are usually at the farm are not there and there are very few House Martins yet.
Visits from the smaller garden birds - Tits, Goldfinch, Dunnock - have dropped considerably as usual at this time of year. We've seen our first Bats swooping over the garden and Hedgehogs - upto 6 - are visiting every night, there's even been the odd Fox passing by the garden (we won't talk about the night two of them woke us up screaming right outside the bedroom window!).
We have again this year adopted the no mow policy for the front garden, it worked well last year although my husband was a bit worried people would think he was lazy so now we have a sign!!
The patch down the side of the path is pretty much left to it's own devices and although the photos don't do it justice all the purples look fantastic and have been popular with the bees. Once the lavender flowers later in the year, it flowers for the whole of summer and the whole strip just buzzes.
Hopefully the front bit will be the same, i've added some native wild flower seeds too so we'll see how it grows. The Sparrows already spend a lot of time picking at the dandelions.
The woods are full of birdsong and nests at the moment, lots of the boxes are in use along with lots of holes in trees, we've seen Blackcaps, Chiffchaff, Song Thrush, Mallards and all the usual birds.
Mallards
Wren
Sleeping Squirrel
Blackcap
Wild Garlic
We have finally made the jump and dug out a new pond, I say we, my husband did all the hard work I just now have to finish off the planting in and around. I'm excited to see what it brings!
