Crime scene

My neighbour is having her garden landscaped at the moment and over recent weeks it's been heavy duty stuff, with a JCB levelling out and knocking down. They've also had the chainsaw out and cleared most of the old apple trees, leaving one to here and there.

One survivor is an ivy-covered hazel that was to close to the boundary fence for felling and had to suffer radical surgery instead. Then a night or two ago the wind blew and one of its main limbs snapped off and dropped into our garden.
Or would have done if the trailing ivy didn't keep it in its grip. I had to get a saw out and cut it free.
Looking at closely at it, the mass of entangled ivy stems completely encase the hazel limb, which was dead and beginning to rot. In my picture there's two or three times as much of the light ivy wood as there is darker hazel.
That limb was carrying a lot of weight. Which made me think about the relationship between ivy and its host tree once again. A friend of mine is convinced that ivy kills trees and looking at the way the ivy had this hazel held it's really easy to see it as one strangling the life out of the other.My friend would look at this picture as evidence of murder committed. But it's really more about ivy flourishing on trees that are already on the last lap.
The RHS says of ivy "its presence on the trunk (of a tree) is not damaging and where it grows into the crowns this is usually only because the tree sare already in decline or diseased and slowly dying". An innocent bystander then and guilty of no 'crime'. 

Near miss

I live in a house with cats, but probably wouldn't choose to if I was living alone. My other half likes them, so I share my living space with three at the moment.
It creates a dilemma. If I feed the birds in my garden, am I exposing them to an unnecessary degree of risk? Predation by a sparrowhawk is one thing, but being killed by a bored cat is quite another.
On balance though I think the benefit that comes from a reliable source of food through the winter outweighs occasional losses to one of our moggies. And our collection of cats are on the whole elderly and too slow for bird-catching.
My partner's latest cat acquisition arrived as a kitten last winter. An unwanted pet, it decided we were a better bet than its first owner.
He's now got his own bed, name (Boris) and territory. He's also at that time of life when hunting is a full-time occupation.
This morning we were enjoying a cup of tea in bed when there was a squawk from downstairs. As I went down, Boris was coming up - with a mouthful of downy feathers.
At the bottom of the stairs more feathers and bird droppings. I searched the area for a dead bird, but then heard clucking in the kitchen.
Our dog was looking at a male blackbird that was sitting on top of our microwave.The bird had lost a couple of tail feathers, but otherwise looked relatively unscathed.
When I opened the kitchen door the blackbird flew out, relieved to have made it back into the garden alive. I later saw it feeding, but don't rate its chances of long-term survival.
What toll do wild populations of birds and mammals suffer at the paws and claws of bored domestic cats? Not sure if anyone can say with any degree of accuracy, but on the whole cats and wildlife gardens really don't mix.

Plant iced

How do you get tennis elbow when you never play tennis? Anyway, I have it and I'm told it's down to too much keyboard bashing and mouse clicking.

So, blogs and blogging are banned for the foreseeable. But I can't resist just a quickie while the osteopath is looking the other way to put on record that we woke up to our first frost of the winter today.
A clear blue sky and ice crystals on every surface. The sun has soon melted it all away, but I did get the chance for a bit of macro photography experiment with my new extension tubes (a bargain at just £5).
They seem to work really well, although the depth of field is a bit challenging. And I'll have to do something to deal with the camera shake - this is an iced-up ice plant taken with and without the tubes.

Small world

I came across a great blog today called 'The Square Metre at TQ 78286 18846'. It's the work of an ecologist called Patrick Roper, who is documenting the natural changes in a square metre of his Sussex garden.
He started it in 2006 and so, over time, the story unfolds. It's a great idea, watching something so intensely for so long. Who'd have thought there be beauty in something like a rabbit dung fungus?
PS And I love Patrick's choice of template too. Somehow it looks familiar...

Autumn blues

This sounds like the November morning blues, because it should start 'got up this morning'. I did, and when I drew the curtains the garden seemed to be full of birds.
Which is good, but also says winter is on the way. Lots of the activity was focused on the hawthorn hedge close to the house, where blackbirds and a mistle thrush were busy breakfasting on berries. 
Taking a closer look I spotted my first redwing of the season too. It was gulping down the shiny berries (are they called haws?) whole.
While I was watching it got through three one after another. Then it sat watching the world go by, presumably while all that fruit settled. Again this year the hawthorns are heavy with berries. The leaves are mostly gone now and from a distance the branches look red where the sun catches them.
Going around the garden this afternoon I have been feeling a bit blue though. When I picked my 'watched' tree back in spring I hadn't even heard of ash dieback; plenty of other tree-killers (and warnings about the damage they could do), but not ash dieback.
Now we know too much. We have so many ashes here that it is hard to imagine the landscape without them - they are 'the' Cych valley tree.
My watched tree is part of the our boundary hedge that is mostly ash. It has been cut and re-grown so many times that its base is so thick I couldn't get my arms around it.
It must have been there for at least as long as the house, which dates back to the 1880s, and possibly longer. Sad to think its days could now be numbered.   

High life

Today's reason to be cheerful has to be this news story I've just spotted on the BBC site. It turns out that the least likely explanation of the vanishing lady mystery turns out to be the correct one.

Painted lady (Photo: Alvesgaspar)

Painted lady butterflies come to Britain each summer from North Africa, sometimes in large numbers.
They bring a bit of colour to the summer and then, when come autumn comes, disappear. The two theories about what happens to them all are that they either head back to North Africa or that they simply die when the first frost arrives.
And the idea that something as fragile as a butterfly could do that journey twice does seem implausible. But now it turns out that they do, but they fly so high up that we can't see them from the ground. 
Butterflies at 1,000 metres up - I love it.

Running late

We had a really wild, stormy night here last night, but today the clouds have gone and the sky is blue. I've happily wasted the lion's share of the day in the garden and have been amazed to swallows.
Five of them in the sun across the other side of the valley. The little group were feeding over river, presumably taking an opportunity to feed up. Swallows this late in the year is odd. Are they a late brood from here in Wales, or birds from further north feeding up on the way through?

Tickled pink

I've seen and heard lots of jays in the valley over the last week or so - and yesterday, spotted one in the garden. It made my day; perhaps that should be I was chuffed. Or is it choughed?
At this time of year we often hear them, but I've not seen one in the garden before. But now it sounds like we're in the middle of a jay invasion, or at the BBC Radio 4's Saving Species reckons we are.

Jay
Photo: Luc Viatour/www.Lucnix.be

It was picking up on the fact that the BTO has seen a marked upturn in the reporting rate for jays this year. Birders are seeing more of them and, in some cases, they're seeing them in flocks of more than 20.
Why? It could be that jays are on the move within the UK because of problems with food availability. The acorn crop here is middling, but maybe it's been a bad year elsewhere.
Or maybe jays from the Continent are coming here this year and that it's in mainland Europe that they are going hungry. I suppose we'll find out in time.

Indian Summer

It came, it went. We had one beautiful day of September sunshine yesterday and it was heavenly. A single world-weary small tortoisehell spent all day in the sun on the iceplant and there was a comma on the ivy that covers the old apple tree.

Comma (Photo: Tim Bekaert, Wiki Commons)

The comma had that mint condition new look about it as though it only just emerged. In the bright sunshine it looked so vividly orange that I decided I needed to take a photo, but of course by the time I had camera, memory card and batteries there was no sign of it.
It did get me to spend some time looking at the ivy and the dozens of flies of all kinds that were buzzing around the flowers on the sun-warmed side of the tree. There were so many of them that it really underlined what an important part late-blooming ivy plays at this end of the year.
I also had a look at my 'followed tree' for the first in a while. With hindsight it wasn't a good choice because you have to sight your way through nettles to get to it.
Hidden away in the vegetation the cut end of ash looks more than ever like the head of some sort of animal to me. The minotaur, maybe.
It's leaves are still mostly green, but they are starting to show signs of change. Brown spots are forming and leaf edges are curling.
And throughout the day there were swallows feeding over the valley. When I went into the garage after dark there was no sign of the last lonely fledgling that has been roosting on its own in there for a week or more - hopefully it joined up with the others and is now on it's way south.
 

Leaf watch 2

Photo: Holly Rollins

Everything seems to be changing here just now. On Saturday the sun brought out a few small tortoiseshells and they spent the afternoon on the iceplants, but they moved as though they were in slow motion.
Our cherry tree is shedding leaves and there are more yellows and browns in the hedge. Last night there was just one swallow roosting in the garage and with the weather getting stormy I worry that it has lost its opportunity; I wonder why it stayed behind when its siblings moved south?

Leaf watch

Ash

When does autumn start to happen? Apparently, it's officially the autumn equinox - September 22.

But isn't it more about what's happening in the garden and further afield - dew on spider's webs, swallows checking out and  acorns under foot. And leaves turning, of course.

I spent some time today in the garden looking for leaf colour changes and, as yet, not much is going on. Leaves on the grapevine are yellowing fast, but - sadly - the bunches of grapes don't show any sign of ripening.

Vine

But in the hedge the willow, blackthorn, hawthorn and ash are all still pretty much as they have been all summer. My watched tree, an ash, has leaves that are beginning to go crispy around the edges, but only a few.

The only native tree that is beginning to change colour is elder, which now has lots of lemon yellow leaves in among the green ones. It's also one of the first of the hedgerow trees to come into leaf, so I reckon it rates as the leader of the pack.

Elder

Absent friends

At last a bit of sunshine and we've got butterflies. A few at least. In a good year the buddleia by the front door is covered with late summer butterflies, including red admirals, small tortoiseshells and commas. Today there were three red torties - just the three - but maybe the weather will hold and more will turn up soon.

The iceplants are just coming into flower and should be a magnet for butterflies too, but they're not working their magic either. That said, they have been buzzing with honey bees for most of the afternoon so they're not going to waste.

Take off

Stressful times. The latest brood of swallows are leaving the nest and things are highly-charged. As far as I can see there are five of them and they've all passed their basic flying test - they can get around inside the garage, but haven't as yet ventured outside.

It has a number of downsides for us. For a start there's the poo issue. While the chicks are in the nest a strategically placed seed tray catches the droppings, which can then go onto the compost heap.

Now though the famous five keep moving around inside the garage and under each temporary perch there's a scattering of swallow poop. Then there's the problem of over-protective-parents; whenever I go anywhere near the garage it's like a re-enactment of the Battle of Britain, with lots of angry twittering and low-level runs at my head.

It's worse for the cat. He seems very confused by the fact that he now has to dash for the cat door under sustained attack.

With a bit of luck the youngsters will soon move on to the next stage, going out into the big world during the day and only coming home at night to roost. Then life should quieten down a little for all of us.

Returning native?

It sounded great to me. Our government has signed up to the idea that extinct native wildlife should be re-introduced, so the white-tailed sea eagle was an obvious candidate.

Re-introduction in Scotland was going well, so why not in England too? Natural England came up with a plan to release birds on the Suffolk-Norfolk coast and started to talk to local people about it.

Photo: Eprdox

I don't know Suffolk that well, but I was excited by the idea of an eagle-spotting holiday on the East Coast. Sadly, the locals weren't that taken with the idea and Natural England went wobbly in the face of opposition - the plan was shelved.

That was six years ago. Now it sounds as though the plan may be dusted off, but with Cumbria in the frame rather than Suffolk (a cynic might think that's because Westminster cares less for the opinions of Cumbrians...)

If the plan gets as far as public consultation I do hope the media coverage is less negative than it was last time around. Then the news media seemed obsessed with the idea that released eagles would devote most of their time to hunting down Suffolk's Chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers.

Coverage was so focused on perceived problems that little weight was given to the benefit that sea eagles could bring to their new home. Cumbria is on my 'to do' list somewhere, but a Cumbria with sea eagles would be a 'must do' - my fingers will be crossed.

Spot on

An exciting (for me anyway) update on my ragwort experiment. It turns out that ragwort is just the thing if you're hoping to attract flies and flycatchers.

With the benefit of hindsight I suppose it's fairly obvious. The ragwort flowers are a magnate for just about every flying insect in the district - which, of course, is just what a flycatcher is looking for.

A couple of days ago we had one good sunny afternoon and I stretched out on my garden bench with a newspaper. A stone's throw away in full sun the ragwort was fly central all over again.

Spotted flycatcher
Photo: Andrew Easton

Then I noticed a small grey bird in the lower branches of my neighbour's apple tree. A grey bird that launched a lightning attack on fly central, skimming the flowers and then landing on a fence post close by.

It then flitted back to the same apple branch before going through the whole procedure again. And again for the rest of the afternoon, or as much of it as I could waste flycatcher watching.

Its been a while since I've seen a spotted flycatcher. And I've never seen one in my garden - it was a real thrill.

The next day it rained and there was no sign of the flycatcher.

No sign the following day either as the rain kept on coming; perhaps it was a bird on the move south, I decided. 

But then today the sun came back and the flycatcher has been busy working 'its' ragwort through another afternoon. I think my experiment is convincing me that ragwort isn't such a bad thing to have around. 

Yellow peril?

'You can't leave that there. You know it's poisonous, don't you?' Well yes I do - and thank you for your interest.

The 'that' is a glorious big, bold Senecio jacobaea in full bloom right in the middle of my wildflower 'meadow'.  Ragwort, or Stinking Billy, that is.

Why is it that some people can't resist imposing their way of gardening onto anybody they meet? My visitor was horrified that I'd not rooted it out and felt he had to tell me so, but I wouldn't dream going into his garden and telling him how I feel about his decking.

Anyway, the ragwort in question is a bit of a monster and looks ridiculous because it is now about a metre and a half tall. That makes it a bit of a Gulliver in a meadow where nothing else grows to more than knee-height. 

It's a self-seed that has blown in and I'd normally have pulled it out. I didn't get around to it and as its grown I thought I'd leave it to flower as a bit of an experiment. I thought it would be interesting to see what insects are attracted to the flowers.

And with the change in the weather over the last few days the ragwort has come into its own. In full sun the flowers are covered in feeding insects - hoverflies, flies, bees and wasps. 

It's quite something. I spent time yesterday trying to get pictures of some of the insects feeding, although without a gret deal of success.

But the plant will have to go before it starts setting seed. Ragwort leaves contain a powerful alkaloid poison that can cause fatal damage to the livers of grazing animals.

They won't eat the growing plant (and I don't usually graze livestock on my lawn), but will eat it if it gets into hay. There's actually a Ragwort Act, which puts a legal duty on landowners to prevent its spread to grazing land.

And because its seeds are wind-dispersed it can spread. So before mine sets seed I'm going to cut it down to be on the safe side.

In the meantime though I'm going to let the hoverflies enjoy it to the full. And there's the added bonus of knowing that it annoys my opinionated neighbour.

Vine street

 

Now here's a surprise, grapes. Ten years of waiting for some sign of fruiting and now five bunches of mini-grapes show up in the same year.

And I can't understand why it's happened this summer rather than all those others. When we moved in there were two vines growing into an old greenhouse, which had rotted and partially-collapsed around them.

It had all been set up so that the vines had their roots outside and their foliage inside. The greenhouse had to go - it was an accident waiting to happen - so I took it apart and built a shed on its block base. 

Time has gone on and one vine is no longer with us, but the remaining one has made masses of growth each summer. But never any sign of fruit.

A couple of years ago I did build a little open-sided wood store against the shed and the vine has been growing partly under the shelter of its corrugated, clear plastic roof. Its leaves form a green roof under the plastic one.

Perhaps that's why it has finally decided I deserve a few grapes - because I gave it back shelter. Whatever it's about I'm really looking forward to eating those grapes, or perhaps I should try making Vin de Cych.

Welcome arrival

So many days of rain that there's not been much to write about just lately. This woeful summer seems to be good for nothing but slugs - it's wet, it's mild and gardeners are mostly indoors.

Here slugs are coming in to raid the cat's dish in the porch each night, they're invading the rabbit hutch and last night they ate through the main stem of our sunflower, decapitating it. There was even a slug trail across the outside of the (upstairs) bathroom window this morning, so it feels like we're under siege.

One bit of good news though is that fox-and-cubs (Pilosella-aurantiaca) has arrived in the garden, bringing a splash of summer colour to the edges of the garden path. It covers on a roadside verge half a mile away from us and over the last few years has turned up in successive front gardens along our road.

And now it's reached us. I'm delighted; it's not a native to the UK, but is a well-established incomer. But reading up on it I'm thinking that I may not be so pleased in coming years; it's considered to be a invasive species in North America and can hard to get rid of.

Grow your own

At the end of the drive we've got a four foot drop down into the garden and in winter I put a bird table at the top of the retaining wall. I Iike to think that the extra height on one side makes the table just a little more cat-proof.

The table isn't there at the moment - I'll put it back in October. But the evidence of the birdfeeding operation is there to see because it looks like we're now producing our own seed mix.

My farming knowledge isn't that good, but I think the plants are wheat, or maybe barley. When I first came across them I was going to pull them up, but I've decided to leave them where they are and see if the 'crop' ripens. 

Getting better

I'm being watched. As I come and go to the backdoor and even when I'm in the kitchen I'm under constant observation - by a male sparrow in the hedge.

Photo: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos

A pair of house sparrows are nesting in the eaves over our bathroom window and the kitchen is on the floor below. It means that when you're in the kitchen they're coming and going throughout the day.

The female keeps busy ferrying invertebrates to the nestlings, I watched yesterday as she 'tenderised' a beetle on the concrete of the drive before taking it to the nest. The male's role seems mostly to be watchman; it sits in the hedge chirping away and keeping an eye on us, the dog and cats.

Good to know that nationally the house sparrow's population seems to have stabilised after years in decline. Apparently sparrow numbers are now at a six-year high.

Nest dilemma

We're having a good nest year this year. The wrens produced a brood in the garage and there are now swallows in there too. Great tits have come and gone from the nest box on the old apple tree and, to my great surprise the sparrow 'terrace' box has finally been used.

I've had it for three years now and have tried it in different places around the garden, but it has never attracted much interest. But it's now on the back of the big shed and has sparrows in residence - if you stand close by you can hear the nestlings.

There is one nest that's not quite so welcome. With all this rain I haven't been in and out of the little shed as much as I would usually, which is probably why I didn't notice the wasp nest until today.

It's on the back of the door and is a little bigger than a golf ball. While I was taking these pictures I didn't see any sign of the queen coming and going, which seems strange.

Shouldn't she be feeding the growing grubs? Below the nest hole there are lots of black droppings, so I'm assuming the grubs are alive and growing.

So is this an abandoned starter nest? Perhaps the queen has died during all that rain. And should I destroy the nest before it becomes a problem?

I think it might be the sensible thing to do. If the colony did grow and thrive the shed would have to be off limits for the rest of the summer - at least for the children.

But I can't quite bring myself to do it. I'm interested to see what happens next.

Daisy days

After a lot of running around to meetings and things over the last week or so it has been great to spend a little time being in the garden. Not doing much, just being.

We have had a lot of rain over the last few days, but nothing that unusual. So it's been strange to hear about what's been happening just an hour up the road in Aberystwyth. On Saturday we were enjoying the sun in the garden while the rain was still falling on flooded holiday parks in and around Aber.

Anyway, the recent rainfall seems to have accelerated growth. Grass in our meadow area that was ankle height a week ago is waist height now, or so it seems.

Along the hedge there's now tall nettles too. But the most eye-catching change is that the ox-eye daisies are now in bloom; there's something charmingly simple about them, like a child's drawing of a flower.

Going nuts

I can remember singing the 'Nuts in May' rhyme when I was at school, or at least I think I can. Our version went something like:

Here we go gathering nuts in May,

Nuts in May, nuts in May,

Here we go gathering nuts in May,

On a cold and frosty morning.

Nuts? In May? It doesn't make a great deal of sense, does it? For that matter, frosty May mornings don't make sense either.

I reckon it's one of those things that aren't supposed to make any sense. But the best of the possible explanations is that its meant to be 'nots of May' - that's the blossom of hawthorn, or May.

We have lots of May here now; the hawthorn hedge is white with blossom and fallen petals cover the ground. Up close the air is heavy with what Richard Mabey calls a "wickedly exciting, musky smell".

I'm not sure that it's wicked, but it's a sweet scent and makes me think that I should give Mabey's recipe for a May petal spirit a try. In 'Food for Free' he suggests putting petals into brandy to make a liquer

What the hedge lacks now is wrens, which makes something of a change. While the wren parents were feeding their brood in the garage the hedge was their stopping-off point.

Much of the time one of the birds was hidden in among the new leaves waiting for the a moment when the coast was clear. But over the last few days the chicks have fledged and gone.

I'd been expecting problems as we've got cats, but it all went off very smoothly. One day they were there, the next they'd gone.

Beautiful day

Paddling in the Cych is usually something I can only stand for a minute or two - even in summer the water is usually bone-chillingly cold. But yesterday was so hot that Is and I spent ages wading around in it.

On a big meander a fallen tree forms a dam and there's a pool that's deep and clear. As we paddled around we saw blue-green damselflies two or three times there.

They never rested in one place long enough for me to get a proper ID. I registered the coloured wings, so can say that they were demoiselles.

Photo: naturspektrum.de

Looking at the British Dragonfly Soc's photo guide it turns out that we have just two demoiselles and I reckon ours was Calopteryx virgo, the beautiful demoiselle. Good common name that - says what is does on the tin.

I'm planning to go back with a camera, but I'm not confident I'll be able to close enough to get anything that is worth having. Certainly I'd be lucky to get anything as good as this one.

Going off at a bit of a tangent, I happened upon the blog of macro photographer Matt Cole recently. His insect photos are used by BBC Wildlife, among others, and are as good as I've seen.
It's inspiring - but daunting. As a dabbler, when you read about the time and skill that goes into making them happen you realise how much you have to learn.

Hot topic

Today is a lemon tea day. For some reason I love it on very hot days, when everyone else is opting for fizzy stuff from the fridge.

I'm just about to make my third cup of the day. But what to do with the bag? I've worried about teabags for a while; only a little niggle of a worry it has to be said. 

Not quite the imminent collapse of the eurozone, but then I do have some control over my used teabags. But I knew I wasn't alone when I read Garden 65 on the subject a week or so ago. What should happen to all my teabags?

They were going onto my compost heap until our council decided to start doing a waste food collection some months ago. Now they go into the little plastic bin they give us and then disappear off to some mega-composting operation somewhere or other.

So, what's better - bags in the council's bin or onto my compost heap? I can't quite decide and now The Guardian was muddied the waters a little further because teabags aren't all they seem.

The Guardian quote the man from Unilever as saying his teabags are "mainly made from organic material". There's a sealant in there apparently that doesn't biodegrade.
Can I trust my lemons? Are they fully biodegradable? And perhaps it's time to go back to tea leaves and a strainer.

Thought for the day...

'We all need a daily dose of nature in our lives and, as a nation of gardeners, there is no doubt that nature needs us, too.'

Garden wildlife guru Chris Baines at Guardian blog.

PS No, the picture isn't from my back yard, but it was part of my 'daily dose of nature' for today. It was taken on a walk through a country house garden this morning.

No show

I'd like to be there, but I can't. The Chelsea Show, that is. My severe allergic reaction to London gets in the way.

So I'll have to enjoy it all from a distance, courtesy of the BBC. But it's nice to know that wildflowers are one of this year's Big Things, or at least Jane Perrone of The Guardian thinks so

Though it seems like she's as impressed by how native plants are looking after themselves behind the scenes as she is by the show garden creations. I like the sound of that.

Look for beauty in the every day, I tell myself. Especially when looking at my lawn, which this year seems to be more dandelion than grass.

Falling over

It's been a few years now since I last heard a cuckoo here on the Cych, but I continue to live in hope. I can relate to the delight Rudi at Tarka's Challenge felt when he heard one at Kenfig the other day - he says: "I was so excited I nearly fell over."

Photo: vogelart.info

Kenfig is only 50 miles away from me here, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for my own falling-over moment.But I wouldn't put money on the odds. 
The BTO is hoping to radio track cuckoos again this year, having followed the movements of five English cuckoos last year. Perhaps with a better understanding of the lives of cuckoos something could be done to halt the species' decline.

This spring the charity is hoping to raise £60,000 to keep tabs on 15 birds this year and it wants expand the study to include female birds and some from Scotland and from Wales. Visit this page if you'd like to make a contribution.

Alarming afternoon

Photo: Martien Brand

I've spent much of the day tidying up the bit of garden around the pond. A useful way to pass the time you'd think, but it has earned me a near-constant scolding from our resident wrens.

The wren pair now have chicks to feed in their converted swallow nest in our garage roof and have been coming and going all day. But whenever a perceived threat appears they start up with their click-click-click alarm call and keep it up until the danger has passed.

Today's 'threat' has mostly been me because I've been coming and going close to the garage door. The wrens also seem to have a problem with the pair of swallows that are using another of last year's nests, a couple of feet from theirs.

Most of the time they ignore the swallows as they come and go, but from time to time a swallow arrives as a wren leaves (or vice versa) and the alarm call sounds. I've been keeping out of the garage as much as I can to try to keep things as calm as possible.

By the pond some of the lawn has been taken over by speedwell. It's a plant that usually rates as a weed, but I rather like its pale blue flowers and so cut the grass around it rather than strim it to oblivion.

I'm not sure which speedwell it is. Based on my field guide I think I'd plump for germander speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys), or bird's eye speedwell.

New leaf

Some sunshine and a weekend, remarkable... It was good to get out and catch up on the lawn-mowing and spend some time seeing what's going on out there.

Finally something is happening with my "watched" tree. It's actually more a watched hedge as it happens, a big, mishapen old ash down by the compost heap.

It's surrounded by plant growth, but until the last day or two has shown no sign of responding to spring itself. That's now changing as, at last, buds are bursting.

The great thing about taking such a close interest in just one tree is that you do look so much closer than you'd normally do. So, I was a little surprised to see how buds are at different growth stages at different points on the tree.

Close to the trunk in the shadier part of the hedge the buds are only just beginning to swell, but further out at the tips of the branches new leaves are forming. For now the foot of the hedge in bathed in sunshine, but as the ash canopy forms overheard it's all going to be lost to shade.

Just now there's a bank of Red Campion, that catches the morning sun and is attracting insects. There are lots of bees and some butterflies too - including this green-veined white.  

Before I went to find the camera to take these photos I could hear the creaky-gate call of a young robin somewhere close by. One of its parents kept an eye on me from a distance.

It took some time looking into a tangle of brambles to spot it spot the newly-fledged youngster perched in a little pool of sunlight. Of course it goes without saying that by the time I was back with my camera it was nowhere to be seen. 

On time

In between heavy showers I've been out working in the garden this afternoon. Deep in concentration I didn't at first register the sound that I was hearing, but then my hearing zeroed in on - a swift's shrill scream.

And there in the grey sky over the valley was a single swift, flying high and fast. It has spent the rest of the day buzzing our house, which has me hoping that we'll have a swift nest over our birthday again this summer.

Looking at the diary I've kept since we moved here it looks like the first swift of the year has usually turned up in the first week of May. The earliest arrival time I've noted is May 1 and the latest - in 2007 - was May 8.

So, everything is pretty much running to schedule. Shame this year's first bird has to arrive to such wet and dismal weather.

Pteridomaniacs anonymous

 

Forget ducks, the weather here this week is probably better suited to pteridophytes. I've spent some time today out in the garden with a camera looking for ferns and there are plenty of fronds emerging and unfurling.

I love their colours, their intricate shapes and how they seem directly connected to the distant past - very Jurassic Park. I don't know enough about British ferns and keep meaning to get a good field guide and learn to ID native species, but I do have just a touch of what the Victorians called 'pteridomania' - fern mania. 

Collecting ferns was a mid-19th Century craze that reached such pitch that fern collectors - both amateur and professional - had a lasting impact on some species. Charles Kingsley cdame up with the term 'pteridomania'.

He wrote: 'Your daughters, perhaps, have been seized with the prevailing ‘Pteridomania’ and are collecting and buying ferns…and wrangling over inpronouncable names of species, (which seem to be different with every new fern that they buy), till the Pteridomania seems to you something of a bore.’

Most of the ferns in my garden are self-seeded. I have bought a few exotics, but most have brought themselves to me.

The climate here seems to be just right for fern-growing. In wetter places ferns and mosses cover the groung and the boughs of older. Looking around in the garden today I found a few self-setters, some of which I'll leave where they are and others that I may move to somewhere better (from my point of view).