The Garden Diary 2009 |
June (part 3) |
Go to the last entry on this page .....Go to previous entry28 June - We are heading into a heatwave, with the temperature today reaching 27C in the garden. Over the next week that high is likely to reach or exceed 30C! Anyway, what has happened to the diary? Well, the gap started off with us heading off to visit my sister and other relatives in South Wales, and then moving on to Cornwall. I did start to keep the diary going down on the lizard but I'm afraid that I had a bit of a struggle with the fatigue again - enough to prevent me from using my kayak at all, which was very frustrating as the sea was so calm for most of the time! I still hope to get that part of my diary completed (at least in abbreviated form). I'll let you know when it does appear. The fatigue has returned home with me and with the Swifts finally discovering our nest boxes I have been rather preoccupied when my energy levels have allowed it. While I need to get a 'proper' diary entry sorted out, there a couple of things that I need to record before I forget. Today I saw a first for the garden in that a Skipper butterfly visited and spent some time fluttering around the grasses and Bird's foot Trefoil flowers (a plant that is doing very well this year) growing on the sunny side of the path. I couldn't get a close enough view, or a photograph to help identify it. I'll be watching out for it over the next few days. Yesterday I was out in the drive watching the Swifts when a much smaller creature fluttered out through the garden gate and passed me - one of the demoiselle damselflies. Since coming home I have found just one example of each of a 5-spot, a seven-spot and a 22-spot Ladybird. I have also found a couple of 14-spot Ladybird larvae. That isn't many native ladybirds, but the same isn't true when it comes to the invasive Harlequin Ladybird. I have found just three adults, and five pupae, but I'm afraid that the larvae count is now well in excess of one hundred. I find a few more every time I go down the garden. Two native plants have come into flower over the last week. The first was a Common Agrimony. A single plant, this is its second year of flowering, earlier than last year by a couple of weeks and looking very healthy. The second plant is Purple Loosestrife, at the far end of the big pond. Planted at the same time in 2007 as the Agrimony, it too is looking very healthy and should produce quite a display of flowers. Twice over the last week, during the afternoon I have disturbed a fox that was hiding away somewhere behind one of the sheds. I must set up a camera to monitor that hidden corner of the garden to pinpoint where it may be. It looks quite old and I rather suspect that it is a solitary fox. Click on images to see larger versions |
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