My Wild-life Garden Chapter 21: December 14th

We had a long, rich autumn. All readers in the UK will know that this is now well over. Parts of the country have endured serious flooding. Yesterday we woke to a garden dusted grey with frost.

The most obvious change in the plant-life has been the change in the deciduous trees. We are now surrounded by bare branches, and the neighbouring houses are the main view, no longer obscured. These bare twigs are sycamore, birch and hawthorn. The coppiced hazel, by the compost heap, is still in full leaf, and the leaves are more green than yellow. The beech in the hedge is one of the brightest colours now in the garden, and I expect the leaves to stay all winter.

But the jolliest aspect of the winter garden for me is the return of the small birds to the feeders. It is just growing light as I write (after 9.00 in the morning, but this is winter in Edinburgh). I can see blue tits busy and active, and a blackbird on the lawn. On Saturday while having breakfast I saw about 6 blue tits, about 10 sparrows, about 5 goldfinches. Also a robin, a great tit, a coal tit, a female chaffinch, two dunnocks , three blackbirds and (rare for this garden) a bull finch. This was all in the space of ten minutes.

The squirrel-proof feeder

The special squirrel-proof feeder has come into its own. It was designed, and bought some years ago, for peanuts. I know I am not the only person to notice that birds with access to fat-balls, nyger seed, mixed grains and so on neglect peanuts. So this winter I have started filling the feeder with sun-flower hearts. They cost a bit more than peanuts, but have proved very popular indeed. In fact some of the goldfinches have been leaving their special nyger to cluster round the sun-flower hearts.

Sweet-briar hips used as food

What with heavy rain and short days I have not seen much beyond the feeders, but this litter of foraged sweet-briar hips shows that they have been much appreciated as food. The same goes for the many other berries. As well as the small birds listed above there are magpies, squirrels and wood pigeons now active in the garden. They all have large appetites.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 20: November 22

I was advised that in the winter there would be a good deal less to say than there was in the spring. It is certainly true that there are fewer opportunities to take photos, so you may get some blog-posts which are nothing but words. Not this one though.

We were away for a week, seeing egrets on the Arno, not to mention paintings in the Uffizi. While we were away there was some notable rain, so that we came home to find another three inches or so of water in the pond. This is good news, for it could do with freshening up. The task of dredging out weed and mud and dead leaves continues. I am not planning to make a swamp, good though that might be for some creatures.

More water in the pond

The best news is that the sparrows have returned, and are chattering round the bird-feeders and in the thickets. There has been a sad decline in house sparrows over recent years, so it is particularly pleasing to be supporting them. Over the years we have seen a few interesting and exotic wandering migrants at the feeders. None so far this year, but I shall be sure to tell you if any do turn up. I get great pleasure just now from seeing coal tits, blue tits and blackbirds.

I went down the garden at lunch-time today to hear a strange crackling noise in the sweet briar. There was a grey squirrel, defying the ferocious thorns, and eating a large rose-hip. Meanwhile a pair of blackbirds were busy stripping the elder berries off the tree. I need to cut it back this winter, so I am glad I have waited till the berries are gone.

As for the hedge – the beech leaves are the most colourful red-brown. But the oak remains my special favourite. Once we get to the new year there will have to be some serious hedge-lopping, but not just yet. It is quite a good way of digesting Christmas dinner.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 19: October 24th

I remember that maybe thirty years ago the tips for the week on “Gardeners' Question Time” included a strict injunction to clean and tidy all corners. Get rid of dead leaves and seed heads for fear they would harbour slugs. How fashions change! Now popular commentators such as Monty Don and Simon Barnes remind us of the importance of food and hiding places for invertebrates of all sorts if your plot of land is to be regarded as healthy. Slugs forsooth! Those piles of decaying matter are hosts to a myriad insects and beetles, and smaller, which I cannot identify and mostly cannot see. They do their own cleaning up; most of them prefer the compost heap to the seed bed. It is their place in the food chain that encourages amphibians, birds and hedgehogs.

Just at the moment the RSPB is conducting a big advertising campaign to get us to provide habitats for creatures. This is certainly something I have tried to do in the wild-life garden.

I have built up a pile of miscellaneous old branches and brambles and prunings in the corner between the wall and the garage. It has been going for over twenty years and does not seem to get any taller, so the base must be impenetrably compressed and matted. The idea was to provide somewhere where small birds can feel safe from cats and foxes. I have seen a wren inspecting it in the spring, but I do not think any have nested there. Goodness knows what else uses it. There is also a smaller pile deliberately kept of dry sticks and open-work construction. It may not have any “attractive” creatures, but all sorts of wood-borers must enjoy the dead wood.

Stick pile

The hedge was constructed so that there is a gully behind it, before the stone wall, which is now full of leaves and hedge trimmings. It would be a wonderful place for hedgehogs, but an area of many gardens almost entirely enclosed by houses is not easy for them to access.

An old shoe in the ivy thicket

I can't bear to throw away things which might be useful in nature. Deep in the thickets there are one or two old shoes hung up, and a cracked old planter has been stuck under a thorny bush. If I were writing an advert, or a column in a glossy magazine, I would have these used by finches or toads. So far spiders seem to be the most visible lodgers. But you never know what will turn up. My lovely little insect house (see the photo in Chapter 3 of this blog) was hanging up untenanted for three years before mason bees found it. Now they are well established.

Who lives under here?

I guess the main thing for habitat is the various unkempt thickets around the place. They will not all be left uncut, but some of them will be. It is good to know that whenever tiny frogs or newts emerge from the pond they will at once find cover.

Then there is the compost heap, of course. I rootled in it the other day and found woodlice by the hundred.

Do not expect wild creatures necessarily to follow your plans. But have lots of possible places, never use pesticides and don't be too tidy.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 18: October 12th

Every year I am surprised and delighted by the new seasons. There is so much variety. Even the earlier darkness makes it easier to go out at night with a torch. There is always something to see. Last week I crossed the path of a fat yellow frog, with black markings.

Autumn leaves hardly need a mention, but that does not make them any less splendid to enjoy. Every day they are a little different. At the moment green predominates, but all softened with red and brown and yellow. They are starting to fall too, which does make a problem for the wild pond. At the moment it is too surrounded with growth to be netable, but I do not want it filled with rotting leaves. As usual there will be some sort of compromise, involving too little too late.

First leaf-fall; hawthorn

This afternoon the sun shone. Once again there was plethora of flies, hovering and darting amongst the seed -heads in search of the last nectar. Some flowers that I mentioned way back in the summer are still producing blooms – Leucanthemum vulgare, the Ox-eye daisy, for example; also Fuschia magellicana, Fuschia. One plant of Campanula rotundifolia, Harebell, is still flowering despite being self-seeded in a most inhospitable-looking masonry crack. This is all good news for insects. So is Hedera helix, Ivy. You may not think of ivy as a flower, but mature growths do have flowers in autumn of the palest green; and very welcome they are for all those autumn insects.

Ivy flowers

There are lots of berries around too. In addition to the hips and haws already mentioned there is a fine crop on Sambucus nigra, Elder. This is self-seeded behind the hedge and is about due to be cut back; but I will leave it till birds have had their fill. Small birds are still fairly rare visitors to the feeders, I hope because there is such abundance of seeds and berries and insects to be had wild. A robin has appeared, which is nice. I believe they go in for short-distance migration, so this one may have spent the summer miles away. I saw the sparrow-hawk again, and there were about fifty geese, high up and cackling.

In the sun there are trails of gossamer glinting all over the place, and all sorts of spider's webs. I was especially pleased to see, in a crack in the wall, a hunting spider of some sort. It might be Misumena vatia, one of the crab spiders. They do not catch prey in nests but pounce on passers by.

Crab spider

I am pleased to give another book a plug once again. This time it is “The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy” by Michael McCarthy.

It is certainly a book to make you think. Here are so many sad tales of destruction and extinction. But if the magic of rivers, or wonder in the wings of a butterfly, or the buzz of bees, or the colours of autumn fills you with joy, you are in good company.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 17: September 28th

Yesterday we had a service at church for blessing “pets and animals”. Some of my friends took dogs. I think I was the only person to take animals that were not pets. In a small pail I had a few woodlice, three small slugs, three garden snails and one small snail. There was also a handful of leaf litter and a tuft of grass, with earth-covered roots, so goodness knows how many thousands of microscopic creatures there were.

The creatures were selected for their ability to live in a bucket for a morning without distress, and because they were sufficiently slow-moving not to escape. In fact the snails were pretty lively, and I had to keep detaching them from the rim and putting them back among the leaf litter. Most people seemed to think I was doing it as a joke. Far from it. The forms of life that are to humans insignificant, or even a nuisance, are as much part of the nature that we must cherish as are the furry creatures with big brown eyes that we find so appealing. It was nice to meet some children who found the snails things of fascination and beauty.

It was so hot at lunch-time that, mini-beasts restored to their homes, I lazed on a chair in the shade. It has been a lovely September in Edinburgh – call it late summer or early autumn as you wish. The combination of mellow sun and of touches of yellow among the leaves give the garden a golden aura which I am not clever enough to catch on camera, but which is very special. There are some lines by Dylan Thomas: “…and green and golden, I was huntsman and herdsman…” Green and golden is a very attractive mixture.

The main work is, and will continue to be, cutting back. I have let too much grow too freely in the last twelve months or so and there is a lot to do. One of the dilemmas for a wild gardener is to decide what to cut and what to leave. Possibly a suburban waste of nettles, ivy, self-seeded ash and willow herb would be good for wild-life. But this is also a garden, where with lots of different patches I try to keep things in balance. Anyhow, I am doing the cutting a little at a time. This is partly laziness, but it also means that amphibians and invertebrates disturbed in one area can move a yard or two and find fresh seed-heads and hollow stems and tangled old grass. One area that I must give some time to is the pond. If it becomes a swamp, with no open water, it will be a very different habitat from what we have become used to.

One advantage of cutting back is the frequent sightings of shy creatures. There was a fine Elasmucha grisea, Parent bug, sitting still on a leaf. It is one of the commoner sorts of shield-bug. 

Parent bug

There have been enough little frogs to give hope for the future population. There have been many sorts of bumble-bee and hover-fly. The biggest hover-flies look ferocious, but I gather that their similarity to stinging or biting insects is a trick to deter predators.

One lovely sight just now is small gnats dancing in the sun against a dark background. I have no idea what variety they are, but they are not biters. In fact I use the word “gnat” as an ignorant layman, not as a scientist or fisherman. I guess that their presence justifies the ponds and the wet moss, and the absence of pesticides. There are harvest-men around, with huge legs; and my grandson was pleased to have a lady-bird crawl on his hand.

On Saturday there was a familiar noise that made me look up. A skein of at least fifty geese flew across, high and going north. I claim no credit for them, of course, but I hope their breeding and feeding grounds are protected.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 16: September 21st

On Saturday we went up Ben Lomond. That is a long way from the wildlife garden, of course, but such country trips give ideas and make one think about what is going on in one's local little patch. We had three seasons in one day, starting with hot sun and ending with mist and icy wind on the summit, with those who had gloves being pleased to put them on. On the way up the dominant bright flower was Succisa pratensis, Devilsbit Scabious. It was profuse, and growing thickly by the path. It would be fun to get some to do that in my “meadow” after the long grass is cut. I guess there would be a problem with over-fertility. When a patch has been a town garden for over a hundred years it is likely to have very different soil from a rough mountainside. But if you find you have got a garden of builder's rubble and sub-soil, do not despair. Some wild flowers will like it.

Water mint

In the pond one of our last flowers to bloom has come into flower. It is Mentha aquatica, Water Mint. I bought one plant when the pond was new, and still it survives and spreads, even though iris and spearwort and water lilies are much more aggressive. In the baby-bath pond I have tried to avoid total stagnation by installing the cheapest possible solar-powered fountain. Thanks to playing about with depths and nozzles I have managed to get it so that there is a jolly shower, but not a spurt that empties all the water out. This little device cost less than £8.00.

Solar-powered fountain

On the summit of Ben Lomond there were ravens croaking and doing free-fall stunts as they dived joyously. In the wild-garden one morning we found a scatter of sea-gull feathers trailing off into the bushes. I guess that such a big, powerful bird must have been the victim of a fox, not of a domestic cat; but I am not sure.

Predator at work

On the drive we commented on how the trees were just starting to turn yellow. Back home we are starting to see berries replacing flowers as the most colourful things. The Crataegus monogyna, Hawthorn, has haws, of course. But the real glory of the autumn fruits with us is the Rosa rubiginosa, Sweetbriar. In some years the mature hips – sometime after Christmas – have been very attractive to greenfinches. They have been less common in recent years, but one of the reasons for writing this blog has been to give me an incentive to observe more closely.

Sweetbriar hips

So as to help me with this observation I have bought a very jolly toy. It is a plastic jar with a magnifying lens in the lid. It enables us old folk with weak eyes to see little bugs of all sorts enlarged and close up. I still don't find I can identify any but the most common varieties.

Bug-box

Once or twice in the last week I have seen that wonderful sight of a gossamer thread catching the sun against the background of shade, as some tiny spider uses it to float off on its travels. I am hoping to see many spectacular webs in the next week or two. Watch this space.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 15: September 10th

Yesterday we had a magnificent wild-life garden event. One of the things that has turned up in the hedge has been oak-apples. I germinated the oak about twenty-five years ago from an acorn picked up in York. Well, ten days ago my five-year-old grandson asked if he could take one home in a jam-jar and see the bug when it came out. I had no idea how long he would have to wait,and if it would work. Then, yesterday afternoon, the phone rang. “Grandpa, grandpa. The bug's come out of my oak-apple!”. I had time, on the bus, to read a little. Apparently it was as likely to be a parasite as the gall-maker that emerged. But no. sitting safe in the jar was what we could see was Andricus kollari. It already seemed a bit big for the exit hole in the gall. I suppose it squeezed out soft-bodied and then body and wings became more rigid. It crawled out onto my grandson's hand, sat for a while so that we could get a good view, did a practice buzz to test its wings, and then soared away into Roseburn. What a treat.

Oak-apples

There has been a definite overall drop in temperature, but last Monday was really hot. To my astonishment I heard some robust croaking. Tiptoeing up to the pond – a good twenty-five yards away – I confirmed that it was indeed two frogs calling each other across the water. I wonder what the point was? It cannot, surely, be to do with breeding as autumn starts.

Red Admiral on Hemp Agrimony

On the same day I at last saw brightly coloured butterfly – Vanessa atalanta, Red Admiral. The Eupatorium cannabinum, Hemp agrimony, has sometimes been really good for butterflies. This year they have been scarce, so it is nice to see one. I hope it finds somewhere safe to hibernate, ready for spring.

Ground elder

One of the most striking plants by the pond just now is Aegopodium podagra, Ground elder. I see my flower book says of it “a pestilential weed... all too often in gardens”, so be careful. What the book does not say is that it is a particularly good insect nectar plant for early autumn. So far I seem to manage to pull out unwanted plants, but I guess it could spread wildly.

I have mentioned before that one does not need to be too austere about providing native plants. We have two magnificent bushes of Fuschia magellanica, Fuschia, planted by some predecessor. They look magnificent for several weeks, are loved by bees, and provide a pretty good thicket for birds to shelter in.

Fuschia

Sometimes I have recommended a book at this point. This week I recommend a TV programme. “Gardeners' Word” has become a splendid advocate for wild-life gardening. Monty Don's wild pond and his pollinators are given plenty of air-time – and far superior photography to mine. There is more to gardening than growing the biggest leek or a prize dahlia.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 14: September 2

Several friends have commented that we seem to be in autumn already. Well, it is September, and September in the garden means that seed-heads are beginning to replace flowers as the main centre of interest.

Actually there are plenty of flowers left, and some new ones emerging, but the seed heads are very splendid. None more so, to my way of thinking, than Rumex, the Dock family. I did check the flower book to see if ours might be Scottish Dock, but it says they only grow on or near the shores of Loch Lomond.

Dock seed-heads

Urtica dioica, Common nettle, is one of those plants where the seeds show them at their best. Those tumbling cascades of pale green are worth putting up with a few stings. It would be nice to report lots of caterpillars on the nettles, showing that butterflies are active. But I really do think this has been our worst ever year for butterflies in the garden. I did see a Polygonia c-album, Comma, about a mile away but in the garden in August we have had to make do with the occasional White.

Common nettle

I have carried on cutting back in a cautious way. The slow speed is partly caused by laziness and partly by a desire to leave what beasts and mini-beasts need for food and shelter. My caution was rewarded today as I strimmed the “meadow” area. In theory my actions now imitate the farmer who turns cattle into his hay-field after mowing, to graze and trample. In practice I go very carefully, and so I saw three little frogs – this year's babies – hopping for cover. Best of all I saw a Triturus helviticus, Palmate newt. I was allowed to pick him up for a photograph.

Palmate newt

I do hope that the “lack” of newts compared with a few years ago is merely because there are far more places for them to hide, I do think the numbers crashed here after the very cold winter of a few years back (walking on the frozen canal, I remember), so it would be good if they were building up again.

The numerous thickets and undergrowth sometimes benefit foxes. I can do without them taking up residence, but I was pleased to see a big one the other morning, sauntering across the bottom of the garden as I first opened the shutters. Grey squirrels are also welcome only in small doses. Our local one is finding ways of eating fat-balls even when they are put in the squirrel-proof feeder. They do look very sweet.

One of the many great pleasures of a wild-life garden is that children can experience nature straight out of the back door. I have cut a secret passage-way in the undergrowth so that my grandson can push through to the back of the pond. 

 

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 13. August 24th

The first sign for us that summer is nearing its end is the departure of the swifts. I do miss their shrill calls at breakfast-time, and the whir as a parent zooms into the nest hole. We also notice that it is more or less dark by nine. No more coming in from gardening at dusk to find it is 10.45. There are more reddening berries around too. The Arum maculatum, Lords-and-Ladies (Jack by the Hedge) is very spectacular, if you can be bothered to look behind the hedge.

Lords-and-Ladies

There has been so much growth recently that cutting back has become overdue. I did make a start on clearing the pond a bit. Last year I tried to do the whole thing in one go, sometime in the winter, with the result that I did my back in for days. This year the plan is “little and often”. The idea is that one dredges out superfluous growth but then leaves it where it can drain back into the water, and any displaced mini-beasts can get home.

Dredging the pond

The most numerous creature seems to be Asellus aquaticus, which is easiest described as a sort of water woodlouse. I was very pleased to find also a Caddis fly case, still inhabited. It was a beautifully neat structure, about the size of a cigarette butt, all made of evenly cut stems like tooth-brush bristles. 

I gather from my nice pond-life book that identifying precisely which species it is will be beyond me; but it seems to be some sort of Limnephilus.

While I was dredging a frog popped its head up to see what I was doing. Also I came across a magnificent spider. I identified it as Tegenaria gigantea, only to discover from the internet that it has been reclassified as Eratigena (an anagram of Tegenaria).

Eratigena, with snail for comparison

There are still lots of bees bumbling around, which is nice, and many of the flowers I have mentioned already are still doing well. I have somehow managed to bonsai the sunflowers but the nasturtiums are rampant and glowing.

Bumble-bees

I think I have said before: do not feel you have to restrict yourself to native species, but lay off the pesticides.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 12: August 15th

Since my last post the Centaurea nigra, Common Knapweed, has bloomed abundantly. The purple theme has been developed further near the pond by the appearance of a little patch of Prunella vulgaris, Self-heal. Otherwise the colour all comes from flowers I have already written about, and probably photographed for you.

Self-heal

We have had some properly hot and sunny days, so all sorts of flying insects have been searching for nectar and pollen. Amongst them I saw three large bumble-bees, possibly Bombus lapidarius. They had that weak, struggling look, all too common with bumble-bees, crawling on the ground, up a grass stem and then falling off. I hope they managed to get some food and some sun-light, and so gathered strength.

A large, weak bumble-bee

I am still hoping for a brave show of butterflies. So far this has been the worst year for a while. I did see a solitary white the other day, and I think it was Artogeia napi, the Green-veined White, rather than Artogeia rapae, the Small White, but I am not certain.

The wild-life garden is great for children. The other day my grandson said, as soon as he came in “Can you get me a snail, please”. That was easy. He put it in a plastic cup with some earth and a leaf. In no time it emerged from its shell, and crawled around, giving a superb chance to inspect its eyes on stalks, and its mouth-parts, and its slimy trail. After twenty minutes we put it back under a plant in the shade.

A Garden Snail

We like to see the small birds, too. A pair of Parus ater, Coal Tit, have been at the feeders, and there are sparrows around again. There is the high wheezing of sea-gull chicks, and the shouting of sea-gull adults defending their territories. The best sighting, though, was a brief but unmistakable appearance by an Accipiter nisus, Sparrowhawk. It flew across at about twenty feet, banked at a right-angle and disappeared into a tree next door. I wonder if it is to blame for the half-dozen white, downy feathers that have appeared on the lawn.

Over-grown pond

I really ought to be doing more cutting back. The pond is all but inaccessible and invisible. Maybe I'll get on with it soon, but maybe I won't.

Summer days

Never forget that gardens in the summer are partly for sitting still in.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 11: August 4th

In my last post I commented on the lack of small birds. I am glad to say that the very next day there were goldfinches of one of the bird-feeders and sparrows on the other. The following day there was one of the occasional treats: a flock of long-tailed tits passed through, inspecting the leaves of bushes for food.

It has been a wet summer there is no doubt. The rainfall in Scotland has even made the national news. Apparently it is the wettest July since I can’t remember when, and farmers’ crops, and feed for livestock, are badly affected. I have always liked John Ruskin’s saying: “There is no such thing as bad weather; only different types of good weather.” But he did not try to make his living by farming. Mind you he did have a superb garden at Brantwood. It is well worth a visit – and includes many wild patches.

Rain drops

I was expecting two more flowers to bloom as soon as we got to August, and I was not disappointed. One is Dipsacus fullonum, Wild teasel. I bought some seeds of this maybe twenty years ago and it is still appearing. It is a biennial, so you have to remember to leave some of the rather unprepossessing one-year old plants when weeding, and I find it is worth staking it in the second year, when it shoots up. The heads are loved by bees.

Teasel

So are the flowers of Centaurea nigra, Common knapweed. My plant of this just turned up one year on the edge of the long-grass meadow, and it now has a score of dark purple heads. I do hope we get some butterflies to write about before summer is over. I associate knapweed with childhood summer holidays.     

Knapweed

Perhaps that is one reason I like Campanula rotundifolia, Harebell, so much. They are still appearing all over the place – including some that have obviously self-seeded. I can all the more easily pretend I am in the country. Many of the flowers mentioned in previous blogs are still blooming, and the prolific green growth is dotted with white, red, yellow, purple and blue.

Self-seeded harebell

Summer holidays in the mountains were a time for Sorbus aucuparia, Rowan. I knew I wanted one as soon as I had the idea for a hedge and the one I bought has survived despite a poor position. But, twenty-five years old, it is starting to flourish. It now has abundant red berries.

Rowan

I would love to have photos of exotic creatures for you you. But one of the effects of a simple wild garden is to increase one's appreciation of the ordinary.

This frog in the baby-bath pond was very welcome.

My Wild-life Garden Chapter 10: July 25th

I began this blog when the swifts arrived back and nested in their usual place in our eaves. Now they sometimes whish low over the garden in groups of half a dozen, screaming as they go. Occasionally I see one peel off and shoot into the nest-crack. They are the most exciting bird in the garden just now, and very welcome because the small birds seem to have disappeared. This presumably means that they are either fledglings, vulnerable and shy, or adults recovering from the ardours of breeding, and also undergoing their annual moult. During this stage they tend to keep out of sight and shelter in hedgerows. There is an adventurous hunting cat, too, which I would douse in icy water if I could.

Orchid and bumble-bee

So the swifts are very welcome. The other common bird in the garden just now is wood pigeons. Yesterday I saw six at once, foraging on the freshly cut lawn. Overhead, and very noisy, are sea gulls. We seem to get common gulls, herring gulls and black-headed gulls in the area. They nest on the roofs (I have said this is a city centre) to the irritation of many and the pleasure of some. In fact in our street the odd numbers have taken steps against them, whereas we even numbers have learned to co-exist. The hostile steps of last year don’t seem to have made any difference this summer. A few years ago I was irritated when a gull on a chimney stack shouted at me, so I shouted back. The bird swooped at me, fast, and all but touched my hair. That was my closest shave, though they do sometimes do a warning swoop when I am in the garden and there are chicks on the roof.

The pond-edge this morning

This morning we really did have sun and heat for a few hours (there was a torrential shower later) and I did some mowing of the second half of my long grass meadow. I was careful to avoid the orchids – we have three this year. As a result of the weather we had a sudden burst of insects. There were bees enjoying the meadowsweet and the fox-gloves. There were hover-flies over the pond. One of them was really big, an amazing sight hanging still in the air. Possibly it was Volucellia zonaria , which is described as “easily recognised by its size and colour”; but it is also described as “local distribution: southern”, which causes doubts. There was a froghopper; I think Aphrophora alni for its size, though it may have been Philaenus spumarius, Common froghopper.  There was also, at last, another butterfly, presumably Artogeia rapae, Small white.

I have already apologised for being rotten at identification. I take comfort from a story told by the great Richard Feynman. A boy, leading a dog, met a motherly lady. “What’s that nice dog’s name?” asked the lady. The boy thought for a while. “I don’t know,” he said, “but we call him Fido.”

Birdsfoot Trefoil

In my last chapter I praised “A Buzz in the Meadow” by Dave Goulson. On page 138 we read: “Flowers that are aiming to attract bees are often yellow and purple.” That certainly fits with two flowers that have come out since I last wrote. One is Lotus pendunculatus, Greater birdsfoot trefoil. The other is Eupatorium cannabinum, Hemp agrimony. They both began in that packet of seeds called “Pond-edge Mixture” which I sowed over twenty years ago. The Hemp agrimony is remarkable. Every year I cut it back to ground level in winter and every summer it flowers at nearly two metres.

Hemp agrimony

One feature of the design of the garden that has worked is the path. It is deliberately not straight (though it is really no more than the quickest way to the compost heap). And it is kept mown so that it looks good, and walking up it is always a pleasure. At this time of year one is walking between tall, buzzing vegetation. 

Apart from snails (it is a big exception) pests and predators seem to keep in balance. A week ago the stems of the teasel were thick with greenfly. Today there were none

Ladybird pupa on teasel support-cane

Just one fat lady-bird pupa.