Our back garden is all about texture at this time of year. Stripped of a season’s green frivolity, its skin is revealed. In one corner sprawls a youthful crab apple.  The bark still gleams in patches but shallow splits are forming down the main trunk. The brittle curling edges of each split are dusted with […]

It has been relentlessly wet almost since the start of October. Over the last few days at home, I have been distracted at intervals by the sound of gentle tapping at different windows.  This afternoon, a blue tit and then a dunnock sat on the windowsill at the upstairs window less than a metre from […]

I’m distracted from writing by a disturbance in the garden and suspect there’s something going on when I see two jays perched on the fence.  Jays do visit but don’t usually hang around very long. These two are clearly up to no good. Watching jays, it’s easy to believe that birds evolved from meat-eating dinosaurs. […]

16th – So enjoying the swifts that it’s almost unbearable the thought that they will be heading home soon. A whirlpool of them over Sydenham station yesterday… feels like they’ve got the urge for going (in Joni’s words).  Ordered Lack’s book, Swifts in the Tower, today and will see if I can resist reading it […]

The surface layer in the woods this morning had the imprint of yesterday’s torrential rain firmly marked on it. Later on in the quiet of Wildside at the Wetland Centre, I enjoyed watching black headed gulls tenderly caring for their somewhat stroppy chicks.

11th  At last the swifts are back here. I walk through the woods and along to the park with the aim of seeing them and gratifyingly 5 or 6 appear briefly.  

The swift are still here but appear to fly together in a purposeful way suggesting they might be off soon. We’ve had six weeks without any rain. Some trees are beginning to shed leaves and gardens and grass are parched.  

10th May – Joy! A squadron of swifts over Sydenham this morning. SHW/DW flowering records: 1.5.18 hazel, oak, hawthorn, cow parsley, holly, dandelion, garlic mustard 11.5.18 sycamore, hawthorn, holly, bluebell, garlic mustard, wood millet, elder, cow parsley, herb robert, rowan, annual meadow grass, dandelion, cleavers, pendulous sedge, nettle, broom, common vetch, meadow buttercup, goat willow, […]

Five frogs in the garden pond. SHW/DW flowering record: 29.4.18 bluebell, wood anemone, primrose, dog violet, fringecups, wild garlic, thale cress, wild cherry

10th – A red-tailed bumblebee queen in the garden and a couple of large moths flying around the streetlights one evening near then.