Finding a siskin dead on the garden terrace when I went down there this morning wasn't a good start to a morning's gentle gardening. She had flown into one of our windows, this despite decals being stuck to deter just this sort of small tragedy. In a way we feel very guilty as....
....we spend a small fortune on sunflower kernels to attract the siskins into the garden.
As I started pottering around it became very evident that our new king robin was having a great deal of trouble with another robin which was trying to muscle in on his patch. However, when this picture was taken he was making the noise which means, "I don't feel threatened just at the moment".
We have three wood pigeons which are growing fat on some of the grain that falls from the feeders. They're actually doing us a service as the the larger grain which accumulates on the ground, such as maize, which the small birds can't cope with, might otherwise attract vermin.
By ten o'clock, with the sun out and pushing the temperature over 20C, the garden should have been full of insects but, as usual, it wasn't - a painted lady was sipping the verbena, a white was enjoying our brassica leaves, and a red admiral popped in to say hello. There were also few bees and other insects that would normally be crowding on to the wealth of flowers we've grown for them, though happily one of the bees put in an appearance just as I was taking a photo of the painted lady.
Every year Mrs MW insists on planting outdoor tomatoes and I tell her she's wasting her time. This year I am comprehensively wrong, for we are going to have a good crop, which says something about the uncharacteristically warm and sunny summer we've had.
On the subject of crops, at present we are enjoying the following from our 18-month old garden: courgettes, tomatoes, potatoes, kale, cavolo nero, peas, beetroot and broccoli. In view of this....
....here is one new arrival in the garden we can definitely do without.
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