It’s been a long hot summer, so there has been many a night where we have slept with our windows open – thanks to our fly screens which we fitted last year.

I started to notice that there are so many sounds of the night, some recognisable and others not. There was one in particular that had me really puzzled. Unlike the sound of crickets, which always make a noise, this one came and went and unfortunately wasn’t loud enough to make a recording.

Thinking about it, I thought that it probably wasn’t an insect and could only think it must be a bird. Apart from bats the only other bird I could think of was an Owl.

After doing lots of searches on the internet for owl sounds, I eventually found what I was looking for.

The Tawny Owl “Warble”. Thanks to the Gods Own Clay website which published all the information about tawny owls, I identified the sound.

We have a Tawny Owl who announces himself each night with a shrieking call.

Another mystery of the countryside solved.

The weather has been scorchio since about the middle of June. All the vegetables are planted and ticking along nicely, the grass has gone brown and growing much slower. This means more time to enjoy the garden and over the last week or so, we have been sitting watching all the comings and goings in the garden.

We’ve had the pleasure of seeing a couple of Golden Oriels land in the tree and the kingfisher has also returned to fishing in the pond. The water is good foot or so lower than it was back in June but it’s still a valuable source of food and water for a lot of wildlife.

A baby hedgehog appeared in the garden one day and I was able to get close enough to take a picture of it.

Whilst doing some routine weeding in the veggie patch, I spotted a fantastic lizard in amongst the cucumber plants. It was almost flourescent green and I was lucky enough to have the camera with me at the time. I’ve seen it on a number of occasions but never seen it displaying such vivid colour before. Quite extraordinary.

The hot weather triggers huge swarms of flying ants to appear from underground. The lizards take advantage of this and there is an afternoon feeding frenzy with a plentiful supply of their favourite food. I spent an hour trying to photograph one catching their prey but they are just so quick, it was all over by the time I pressed the button. I did manage to get a good picture of one of these comic creatures though ….

In the last week, there has been a noticable influx of fledglings in the garden. Green Finches, Sparrows, Blackbirds, Wagtails and Redstarts are to name just a few. The award for the most spectacular display goes to the Martins. The fledglings landed on a branch that Steve put in place in the Willow tree after we cut it back last year. It was meant for the Kingfisher and it hangs out right over the pond. While they waited patiently, the parents, in flocks of about 10 or so, swoop down and catch various insects off the surface of the water. Every now and then, they give their prize to a fledgling who excitedly starts flapping it’s wings and twittering at the site of a parent bird coming towards them. It has been difficult to get a picture with no telephoto lense, but Steve managed to get a shot taken through the binoculars …..

It was one of those mornings where the birds were singing and the sun was shining in a cyrstal clear blue sky. There was a heavy dew everywhere and as I took a walk around the garden it was a moment of absolute tranquility.

Here are some pictures to capture these very rare moments of natural perfection …..

As I came in from the garden yesterday, I noticed something on the petal of the Clematis growing just outside the patio door. On closer inspection, it was a spider (albino?) having an afternoon snack on an unsuspecting honey bee. It’s quite amazing to think that the bee is about twice the size of the spider.

Something I’ve noticed when you spend so much time in the garden, you start to get more in tune with what’s going on. So when something different appears or happens, you tend it spot it straight away.

As Spring is now moving into summer, there are a few fledglings about. They follow ‘mum’ around waiting for the next tasty morsel. We were lucky enough to watch a group of green finches on their test flights yesterday. Their colours are fantastic when they catch the sunlight.

Last night about 9pm I heard the magpies making quite a noise outside. When I looked out the window, I saw two adult magpies escorting the scraggy farm cat down the drive and up the steps to the garden. They were quite deliberately following him one after the other. Their young one has recently fledged and I would imagine they wanted to make sure he was well clear of trouble.

Lizards are about with abundance now the weather has warmed up. The common small brown ones are everywhere, dashing all over the terrace, up the walls, in the guttering and also get into the window sills. They are currently fighting out their territorial limits and mating of course. A more spectacular looking lizard who lives here is the Lacerta viridis. I have a couple who have taken up residence in my veggy patch and they are often out sunning themselves while I go about weeding.

The tadpoles have now turned to tiny frogs with dozens of them making their way to pastures new across the grass. It’s difficult to see them until they move and mowing the grass is turning into an exercise of quick swerves to the left or right to miss the little bliters. I also have a few that are now living in my veggy patch too, which is a welcome thing for me to help beat the slugs.

So it’s all happening at the moment in the garden, all we need now is some consistent summer sunshine which we can all enjoy.

Spring is trying it’s hardest to arrive. We’ve had some really awful weather – strong winds, rain, rain, rain and some frosts. We haven’t stopped using the log fire yet either which says something about the low temperatures we have been getting.

The days are now much longer though and the more familiar early morning bird chorus is in full swing. The Chaffinches, Blackbirds, Pigeons and sparrows are all fighting it out for their corner of the garden, whilst all the “girlies” are busy picking up bits and pieces and busily getting on with the job of nest building. We keep spotting new birds in the garden too. The lastest is a male redstart and a firecrest and we’ve heard the cuckoo and the hoopoe.

Unfortunately the moles are at it too. A combination of the wet weather and spring breeding seems to have triggered a major exercise in making mole hills. Normally we are quite tolerant of these fury underground beasts, but the damage they are doing, especially to my veggie patch, is starting to try our patience! I have tried to stem the flow of mound making with various activities such as stuffing rags with strong disenfectent in the tunnels, but unfortunately, it simply moves them further up or down the garden. I don’t like “eradicating” wildlife but it’s getting a bit borderline now….

On the bright side, the spring flowers have started to come into bloom. We have left the grass to grow long around the main part of the pond to allow the wild flowers to flourish. Steve has mown a path along the growing grass to great effect.

Talking of the pond, there are tadpoles appearing everywhere and we are now starting to see the big carp coming to the surface and enjoying some of the brief spring sunshine.

Inthe last day or so, we’ve had a couple of love struck ducks appear on the pond but we have discouraged them from taking up residence – they are nice to look at but very messy and noisy.

The heron has been regularly visiting but doesn’t seem to be having much luck with catching anything. We think it must have a family somewhere as it’s not deterred by our presence at the moment and will sit for quite some time.

Weather forecast for later this week is for “beacoup du soleil” so lets hope that’s the start of the hot season – finally…

We thought we had seen just about everything there was to see around here but yet again, just when you think you’ve seen it all … Another lovely autumn morning and then, from nowhere, a Cormorant lands on the pond! It swam across to one of the ducks to say hello then merrily fished for about 15 minutes. It took quite a few, including another prize goldfish that we didn’t know we had. It then got out onto the banking and waddled around in the garden for a bit, flapping it’s wings and preening itself, before taking off again. I did manage to take a few shots through a pair of binoculars but most came out too blurred. Here is one though that does prove I wasn’t seeing things – there were three of us who witnessed this event!

We have seen a variety of wildlife here in the garden and when we are out mountain biking. We have a great ride recently enjoying the autumn weather around the area of Rochechoaurt and Chassenon. As we leisurely ambled along one of the lanes we could see some unusual pink shapes in the distance. As we got closer, we could see dozens of little piglets rooting around in the dirt, oblivous of what was coming towards them down the lane. As we got nearer, all hell let loose as they spied us and scattered squealing trying to remember where they had escaped through the fence. It was very amusing and amazingly, Steve managed to get a few pictures. Here’s one that came out …

We’ve now got a really pond full of baby fish. Mostly carp it seems. They love to eat anything that you throw onto the surface of the water and it’s a great way to get ride of stale bread. Just pop down to the pond edge and through in a few pieces and a real feeding frenzy starts. The small baby carp are very fast and they are onto it light a shot. Carp can only ’suck’ at their view and you get this very loud slurping sounds as they all battle to get at the same piece of bread. Every now and then, one of the big ones comes up from the bottom and takes down in one gulp. It’s great fun to feed them although we don’t make too much of a habit of it as we don’t want them to rely on our food for survival. They seem to do alright mostly by themselves. It’s just like having a dog to feed all the leftovers to!

We have a new visitor to the pond – a lovely Kingfisher. It comes virtually every day now and does a bit of fishing. It is a real delight to watch. You don’t really see it when it sits in the tree but then you see the flash of blue when it flys down to catch a fish. Why it’s coming to our pond, we don’t know. The river is quite a distance from us in the valley. It may be because with all the rain we have had, the river is very muddy and it’s easier fishing here. Anyway, we don’t care why it’s just a delight to have it in our garden!