A REVIEW OF 2019 - PART 2/4

At this time every year I take a look back at how the garden changed during the year.

This is the second of four posts that will charter the changing view of the garden; April to June.

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

SHIVERING WILDLIFE GETTING A SOAKING

Is it autumn already? The weather has been distinctly autumn-like following the hottest recorded temperatures for June in more than 40 years.

The blue tit chicks have paid occasional visits to the garden in the last couple of weeks, and so far it appears most have survived.

I’ve not seen a bird of prey around for a while, even down the lanes, so perhaps the sparrowhawk and kestrels are focusing elsewhere for the time being.

There’s been no sign of any robin chicks yet, although the adults are still regularly spending time in and around the garden.

Both blackbird parents are in the garden daily and, thanks to the wet weather are often tugging worms out of the soil – winning most of the battles.

There’s still no word on whether the house sparrows are sitting on eggs in the blue tit next box, but they are still hanging around there like they own it.

One noticeable visitor has been the crane fly, well actually hundreds of them. Many of them are coming in the house, which is not the best place considering the amount of spiders knocking about.

However it does mean they avoid the increasing amount of swallows, whose first ‘batch’ of 2017 youngsters.

Will July bring warm and summer-like weather? Let’s hope so.

A VERY GREEN GARDEN IN WET JUNE

Activity in the garden has been mainly limited to the flora, with plenty of growth in many plants including the cauliflower and broad beans.

There has been a favourite sight this week with a visit from a couple of newly fledged robin chicks.

They spent quite a while in the garden, watching from various posts and pouncing on the odd invertebrate.

Apart from the off visit from blue tit chicks and flocks of house sparrows, the main visitors have been swooping swallows.

It’s great to see and hear them, particularly the newly fledged youngsters who are constantly chattering to the adults as they chase their insect food.

Sadly they’ll all be gone in a few months and the slow process of summer turning into autumn will begin.

Until then we can enjoy them and hopefully some summer sunshine, which has been particularly lacking following a thoroughly wet June.

GARDEN GROWTH SURGE

The weather in June has led to a a particularly high rate of growth of the flora in the garden.

Poppies, cauliflowers, broad beans, sunflowers and the tomato plants have all benefited from the humid and often damp conditions.

The planting out session of plants from the greenhouse has been completed and what's left inside there will hopefully have enough space to grow and produce some good crops.

Tomatoes, cauliflowers and one chilli pepper plant remain.

Bird news is mainly around the return of the great tit chicks to feed in and around the garden, mainly due to the hard work of the parents.

There is constant chirping in the tress and bushes from the little ones, and when they are joined by the house sparrows and their chicks, the noise is pretty loud.

I suspect a couple of the great tit chicks have already been lost to the local sparrowhawk, but that's nature.

The season now needs some dry weather to help the flora and fauna in producing the  next generation.

It'll also allow us humans to be outside and enjoy the constantly changing colour and noise in our gardens.

A RELFECTION OF CHANGES IN THE GARDEN DURING 2014

In August I started to share images of how the garden changed during the months of the year, but only got as far as March and April due to a sudden serious illness.

It’s probably a little late but here’s how the garden changed during May and June. You’ll see a significant change in May.

In June I trimmed the climbing plant as it was pulling at the guttering, but made sure that it didn't affect the birds nesting.

In these three months there were two broods hatched and fledged from the two nest boxes you can see.

 

The single one on the right had house sparrows in, while the nest box on the left had tree sparrows nesting in the segment on the left.

 

May 

 

June

TIME LAPSE HANGING BASKETS

This week I thought I'd share a series of images from the hanging baskets, taken through June, July and August.

Although the images are exactly aligned like a professional time lapse photography sequence, you can still get an idea on how the garden has grown during the three months of summer.

It must be said that the insects and birds have flocked to the flowers with butterfly and bee numbers massively up on last summer.