There hasn't been much butterfly activity in the garden this year; recent weeks have turned up one each of peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and speckled wood, and a couple of cabbage whites. But one day my eye was taken by a fly-past of something the colour of a red admiral but smaller, and whirring in an un-redadmiral way. I followed it, and spotted another ... and another .... there were five in all, and when they landed briefly it was clear that they were moths, a beautiful red and black when the wings were extended and black with white and yellow markings at rest. The reason for there being so many at once was obviously that one was a female, and the males had sex on their minds; only one male struck lucky, and the rest disappeared. My butterfly book tells me that they were scarlet tiger moths - new ones on me. Interestingly the book suggests they belong to marshy areas, which might explain why I've never seen them before, but not why they turned up this time! It hasn't been that wet ....
... in fact the last week or so has been quite dry, and we have at last had hot weather; the T-shirts have been brought out again (first time this year except for our holiday abroad). Tuesday topped 30C, even in our garden, and Wednesday was also warm, but it has cooled a little (fortunately) and this evening has seen some welcome rain. The summerhouse has been demolished and is now being rebuilt, so the good weather is very timely.
The nestbox, when removed from the old summerhouse, contained the nuthatch nest with the remains of one well-grown nestling in it. I wonder if the woodpecker managed to extract the rest; some anti-raiding device needs to be worked out before the nestbox goes up for next year. There were no signs of a recent nest in the summerhouse roof after all; so what were the nuthatches doing in there? Mystery. They are now off in the trees for the summer, although one came to the peanut feeder the other day. There are lots of sparrows, several blackbirds including a couple of noisy youngsters, dunnocks, the wren and the odd finch (and of course the woodpeckers and pigeons, including occasional visits from Lefty the lame pigeon). I've also heard yellowhammers in the distance. The sparrowhawk (female) turned up one day and made off with a sparrow from the lawn; I suppose they have young to feed as well.
We also have a family of field mice in the woodpile at the side of the drive; they occasionally scamper out and down the side of the garage. I suspect they've found the alpine strawberry plants that have seeded down there.
The broad beans are virtually finished - not a good crop this year. The kale is running to seed, and a couple of the potato plants died back and have been dug up; the shallots have been a complete dead loss and there has only been one successful garlic plant. On the other hand the courgettes are doing well, and the leeks are ready for planting out; I also have a good number of bean plants to put in. The compost bin has produced another good lot of usable compost so the soil should be in rather better heart this winter. I netted the small blackcurrant bush and the red gooseberry and got a small crop from each; the transplanted green gooseberry bushes did little (still too small, I think) but the big one that I left in place cropped heavily - I picked a reasonable number and left the rest to the blackbirds. The raspberries are cropping very well, and the blackbirds and I are both quite happy with what we're getting from them!
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