IS THIS AUTUMN OR SUMMER?

Not the most exciting week in my garden, as autumn seemed to show its intent while summer still exists in the calendar.

The wind and rain we’ve experienced recently hasn’t been the weather we all wanted for the second half of summer, especially considering the lovely weather of July.

But it appears to have not been too negative for the wildlife.

The spring rain and early summer heat has combined to deliver plants and flowers with an inexhaustible supply of nectar and pollen, along with shelter for insects and invertebrates to breed; with many producing lots of young.

The bees and butterflies have been seen in much bigger numbers this year and have mainly been seen on the buddleia and the sunflowers.

I’ve not counted the different types of bee species in my garden, but there have been at least five different types, while a similar number of butterflies have been feeding on the buddleia.

The bird life has been fairly quiet this week with the odd sighting of a female blackbird and chatterings of house sparrows, some of which I presume used the nestboxes in my garden.

One thing that has been lovely to see, has been the amount of young blue tits – at one count six chicks – while a smaller number of great tit chicks have also been regular this week.

So with autumn weather set to continue, how will that affect the wildlife sightings in my garden?