I am frustratingly restricted to the garden and housebound for a few weeks at the moment, due to a foot operation. It will be a great learning curve in patience, but my first day sitting in the garden turned out to be a delightful experience in surround sound birdsong. The Blackbird and Robin were taking turns to do their songs interspersed by flash visits of tinkling Goldfinches and Long-tailed Tits. Later the much imitated Jackdaw (by the blackbird) joined in with his signiture 'hicaaaw'.
You begin to appreciate the local realationships between the birds as you become aware of snatches of each others songs in individual song repertoires. To have them all together at the same time was particuarly revealing. It also indicates that they have been living in the area for several years and maybe generations.
The first hatchlings can now be heard racketing in the low branches of trees for food and I suspect many parents are now into second broods. But with boxed in roofs there are definitely not as many nests as there used to be.
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| Peacock Butterfly |
It is quite time for butterflies as last years adults die away and the new caterpillars have yet to metamorphise. Fly, moth and butterfly caterpillars provide an abundant source of food for the the young birds.
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| Ragged Robin |
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| For-get-me-not |
Many wildflowers are now growing in abundance and we shall soon be into the main season for looking. 