In many respects the weather has been very kind to us this year and we've more recently experienced one of the driest periods at this time of year I can remember - until.... this weekend arrived!! We've had quite a wet day today which has been SO welcome and to be honest would love it to carry on a bit which it's forecast to do but you can never tell from the forecast... even in France!
Everything this year had been early - the Lily of the Valley was almost over by the 1st May when traditionally in France you give bunches of it to your friends and neighbours to wish them well for the rest of the year. So following on from that everything else has come early too including nesting birds - the quantity of fledglings this year so far has been incredible... loads of Great Tits and Blue Tits and not to forget our regular visitor - a rather gorgeous baby Great Spotted Woodpecker with its' parents!I can also report that we've had our earliest fledged swallow babies too and more on the way I think! Despite the reports of swallow numbers being down we seem to have more nesting here this year which is fabulous.
With Mummy!
So cute!
Note the little one at the bottom..."Me.. me...what about me?"
I couldn't resist this one of one of the faithful Blue Tit parents - this large family fledged some weeks ago ... just waiting for the next brood to arrive now! This box has been used every year since this box was put up on our Walnut tree.
The garden this year has done well but with the dry weather was starting to suffer a bit for lack of water - I can see I shall be out there this week getting things planted whilst the soil is damp again and filling in the gaps in the vegetable garden too.
This is our wonderful resident toad - he's set up home among my Box cuttings which had been recently potted on - he'd been burying himself in the lovely compost - I guess he realised how well disguised he was in there... however, imagine my surprise whilst watering when he climbed out!!I do hope that it wont' be too long again till my next posting and that I'll have even more to share with you by then, but hope these photos give you a brief update on my garden here... have a great week and much look forward to having some time to rediscover all my favorite blogs that I know I've somewhat abandoned over the last months - I've really missed the contact with other like minded people and hearing all the wonderful stories from far and wide... a bientot! Miranda
6 comments:
Oh Miranda it's so good to hear from you. Your border swathes look very impressive especially ALL of those daisies against that beautiful blue sky. I see too you have the same salmon pink poppies out that are out in my garden asewll.
I hope the rain stays alittle longer for you - we ended up very near the 80's this week. One of mine was doing his silver Duke of Edinburgh award expedition up by Killin in the past few days a place I'm sure you know very well.......... he came home very red - too hot for an expedition!
Have a great week.
Love the photos of your garden and the willife that visit. So interesting to looks at what is happening in the season opposite to ours and the differing wildlife.
Hope your back doesn't give you further problems.
Beautiful pictures, how nice to have an early spring. I hope your back is feeling better. Lovely roses, and I would have been very surprised by the resident toad.
Rosie - thanks so much for leaving such lovely comments on my blog especially since it's been rather longer than I'd wish to think about since I last did any blogging! - Sorry. As you know I think - I worked at Ardeonaig Outdoor Centre for nearly 2 yrs so know the Killin area well - I loved it up there despite being rather remote - some fantastic walks... I wonder where they were walking? Take care and I'll endeavour to pop over to your blog v. soon - Mirandax
Thanks Ian - I think this is your first visit to my blog? Thankyou for leaving the kind comments - we're very lucky with the wealth of wildlife around here - particularly the birds - and great to see so many young fledglings doing so well - they're eating me out of house and home on the bird table! Have a good week - Miranda
Lovely to hear from you Rebecca - very kind of you since it's been so long since I was blogging - back behaving itself which is great - I enjoyed getting out and gardening so much this spring having been couped up most of the winter! Will pop over to your blog again v. soon - take care Miranda x
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