Swift Half update - 12th June 2011

• A few words from me on the garden, rather than our incubating swifts...
• After the driest spring since records began and neighbouring counties have been given official (agricultural) drought status, its rained on and off here (ON all day today) for a week or so now.
• The garden has certainly appreciated the rain, even if I havent!

• The evening primrose has given us its first flowers, the sunflowers are doing well and the pond is not evaporating at all at present!
• The damsons and pears will get the moisture now they so desperately need to swell - maybe we will get a good fruit crop after all, this year.
• We have many tree bumblebees taking nectar from the bramble flowers in the rear and rear-rear gardens - I've not located their tree (or bird box) nest yet, but I'll keep searching.

• A huge foxglove has appeared in the garden (along with a good size clump of wheat again, like last year) - and the bumblebees seem to love this!
• At last I've finally seen a lone young woodpecker in the garden. A couple of days later than  last year and on its own-  no sibling, not even a parent feeding it. Very strange!
• The newts still dominate the pond - all sizes from tiny wee newts with gills, through mid size, orange-brown newts with shrivelled gills, gravid green females and small, lively leopard-headed males. All palmates still.

• A local fox bothered the hens this morning, I caught the tail-end of the action at ten-past five (am) this morning - the poor girls have had a bit of day - scared to buggery and back by a very inquistive fox at dawn and then rained on all day.... still.... no damage done yet - I'll probably keep them in all day this week, whilst I'm at home -  and I've bricked up the bottom of the coop, so with any luck the fox'll not be able to dig itself into their run.
• Finally, I caught a new moth for the garden t'other night - a "beautiful hook tip". (Quite badly named in my opinion, unlike most other moths. Hook tipped it certainly is, brown, dull and distinctly un-beautiful (I'm afraid) it is too!)

Swift Half update - 2nd June 2011

• I've not given a garden update for some time and a lot is happening at present so here goes...
• Firstly - the edlerflowers are well past their peak - by the first day of JUNE! Something amiss there!
• Secondly -last year as I've already mentioned before about three weeks ago - the first honeysuckle flower appeared on the 1st June - this year (on the first June) the honeysuckle wass probably past its peak - certainly in full bloom and spreading that sickly sweet smell all over the patio.  Summer has come particularly early this year.
• The bramble flowers are all out - and are covered with all manner of bees - in particular, loads of tree bumblebees - which must be nesting in  a tree or bird box round 'ere somewhere, but I've not found out exactly where just yet. (Tree bumblebees in case you've forgotten are relatively new to the UK - and are the only bumblebees to nest up trees or in bird boxes up trees. They're very easy to identify - quite large, with a ginger thorax and a white tail).
• All the flowers and herbs that Anna bought me for my fortieth are doing very well - the flowering sage is rampant (and the bees love that too) as is the lavender. The chives (which we've had for two years now) are doing well - loads of flowers (again, past their peak) and the evening primrose and white valerian are doing very well also (no flowers on the evening primrose yet though).
• My sunflowers are doing ok as well - though they don't look as "strong" as last year. Time will tell...
• I saw my first hawker dragonfly over the garden this afternoon, chased by a sparrow - but it managed to gerraway I'm glad to say.
• We've had our first beautiful demoiselle (damselfly) of the year and the jewel wasp has been back on our south-facing wall a few times.
• Malu and Yala have enjoyed eating my moffs when I've had time to put the moff trap out - last night I did manage to catch a lovely yellow male lackey moth and two light emeralds - very nice to see.
• I hear the elephant hawk-moths are out also now, so I don't suppose it'll be too long before I catch one or two.
• Plenty of birds in the garden also (though I only feed the tits and woodpeckers now, you might remember). I expect the fledgling woodpeckers to make an appearance in the garden any day now.
• No fox in the garden at present, or heron - but my eagle eyes (and ears!) are ever alert to the possiblity...
• Since our petrol hedge trimmer has blown up, I've not done much clearing of the garden -so all is very green and overgrown (apart from the lawn of course - which has still hardly had any rain since late February).
• All this sun and warmth has certainly been incredible for the flowers, blossom and therefore the start of the fruit (pears and damsons) crop. BUT - in order for all these laden boughs (and they really are laden with small pears and damsons) to really come into their own, we desperately need some rain to swell up the fruit.
• I hear that June is meant to be pretty-well bone dry in the south of England. That combined with a bone dry March, April and May means I rather think that although the possibility of tons of fruit exists, a lot of it may wither away in flaming june. We'll see...
• I had a wee poke around the jungle this afternoon -looking for caterpillars and damselflies. Hardly any to be seen to be fair (although most insects  - certainly larval insects) like conditions to be far more damp than they have been in the last few months. We have loads of huge harlequin ladybird larva, loads of dock bugs - but thats about all for now.