Alive, Alive-Oh!

Crow

Everything has been flying, rustling, scampering and buzzing in the garden ever since the sun came out. Wild things obviously  love the variety of wild flowers and plants I have encouraged this year. I'm not quite so enamoured. The self-seeding plants and the really obstinate ones, like forget-me-nots. campion, sticky willy (cleavers), buttercups, herb Robert and wood avens have begun to stifle everything else so I've been tearing them out  by the armful. (I've been 'earthing up' the potatoes with them because I'm running out of compost. I hope it works.)   I don't have a munching animal to eat the greenery - no goat, sheep, guinea pig - so I have to be that creature myself. And this year I'm a bit late in getting around to it.

Herb Robert 

Buttercups with  bumble bee

I am gratified, though, to discover that there about twice as many bees as last year and I'd say a wider variety. Big bumbles go for the echiums, alkanet and geraniums; honey bees specially seem to like the alliums and 'Black Widow' geranium and there's a small kind of bee that favours the buttercups.

 It was watching these small bees that attracted my eyes to the garden wall. We are encouraged to buy attractive wooden bee hotels and I've often wondered what insects did before we were so thoughtful. These little bees I was watching have a way of  hovering by the wall so I had a look and the bricks are full of little perfectly round holes. Every now and then a bee will enter one - so my wall is its own bee hotel. 

Brick wall bee hotel with perfectly round entrances

Small bee entering its home

The swifts (they are not swallows) are truly here now. Their flight is most amazing to watch. My neighbour has had a swift nest box fixed under the roof with a recording of swifts twittering to attract the real ones. Since renovations and extensions to homes are removing swift nesting opportunities, I think that's a brilliant idea.

Swift snatching up flying insects

Swift on the wing

The crows are interested in something lying in the gutter of an opposite house and poke around a good deal  then fly off with some of whatever it is in their beaks. It might be  moss for a nest but I think it's a bit late for that so perhaps a dead bird for feeding the young? 

I've been given a roosting pocket made of straw so that little birds like wrens can huddle together in winter and keep warm. I've hung it in a golden privet and hope it gets used. 

The slugs and snails suddenly became very active too, after a day of rain. It is a myth that they move slowly. They look slow but they can move at a great pace if they are hungry

     

                                                                 

They become hungry when the cardoon starts to grow. They will find some way to climb into its great  silvery leaves and if given their head will eat the plant almost to death so it will not have the strength to produce flowers. I picked off 20 snails in the middle of the night last week and have now tied  the leaves together with string so they don't create a bridge and I've covered the ground with wool slug pellets and am hoping for the best. Apparently a snail can live  for 10 to 15 years - the mind boggles. 

                                

              Snail  speeding towards                                                             a favourite food