Starting May - rather slowly
3 May
“The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed, it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London.”
George Orwell - Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
This has been a busy week, beginning unseasonably warm, sunny and bright and ending cool and wet … though the gardens certainly needed the rain.
So, a short post this week - the garden has been hosting quite large numbers of White-throated Sparrows (“Oh-Sweet-Canada-Canada-Canada”) for the last few days as they drop in for a snack on their return north. We have greatly enjoyed their song and the hopping around being busy and scratching for food. Starting today with a face-off at the head of the waterfall with a female Cardinal - whose turn is it next for a splash?
Yesterday evening six (at least) Yellow-rumped Warblers (the first warblers of the year) visited the waterfall just before supper. I thank that I will have more to say about the “Butterbums” next week.
This date last year, May began with this female Rose-breasted Grosbeak:
A very small daffodil - the diameter is barely more than the length of the top joint of my thumb.
The first of a small clump of Cowslips are just opening beside the pond. Not native, I know, but I just saw a photograph of an English meadow posted by the National Trust and remembered we have these too - nostalgia.
Now - Blower Season
There are fallen leaves on the ground, as you would expect, at this time of the year. Leaving them for sound environmental reasons is the usual wise advice. At least gently rake them onto a flower bed as mulch so that any insects or other small creatures hiding in there have time to emerge as the weather warms. Sadly, many gardeners have not got the message … and so, as a write this post, in a garden down the road there is a a slowly advancing wall of FIVE contractor’s workmen, mostly dressed in black, walking across a small lawn (maybe 80ft square at most) with industrial size, gas-powered leaf blowers removing every last leaf. Quite apart from this not being best practice, the level of noise is quite unsupportable. When they have done this property they will move on to repeat at another and then another. Unacceptable.
This image, apart from the hats, is pretty much what I saw …
I will be back with more meaty content next Sunday, including getting back to the Noticing Nature series. Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to visit an alternative universe at the OLD Bookshop … where the month of May got off to an unusual start this year. Here’s the link.
