There’s still been no sight of Spikey and I’m concerned now as I don’t
think he’s been eating much of the cat food or mealworms that I’ve been handing
out.
Indeed there seems to be a family of magpies that have been raiding the
garden for my mealworms and the cat food, although how much of the cat food is
left by dawn is something I don’t know.
I’m going to check the house sparrow nest boxes out this week as I’m
not sure if another clutch of eggs has been laid yet, or indeed if there will
be another brood this year; I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.
All of the plants are now out of the greenhouse, apart from the three
‘resident’ tomato plants, and most are surviving well outside.
The runner beans have flowered and the first signs of beans are now
coming through, while the broad beans have flowered and some will soon be ready
for picking and eating.
They’ve all been visited by plenty of bees and this year has seen the
biggest number of bees in the garden for nearly a decade.
Every day the bees have visited the garden in huge numbers, with many
varieties of honey and bumble bees.
As more and more flowers come into bloom it seems the supply of pollen
and nectar will continue for the foreseeable future.
Currently the sweetpea plants are flowering and soon it’ll be the
tomatoes, before the sunflowers continue the supply.
Of course all this means there’s plenty of colour in the garden.
The swallows appear to be in very big numbers this year and I’m
predicting the count will exceed 40 when they start to prepare for the journey
to their winter home and gather on the telephone wires.
Until then I’m going to enjoy their aerobatic displays and beautiful
voices as the glide and swoop in and around the garden.
Next week I’ll bring news of a song thrush that has taken to singing
loudly and at length around the garden.
