Each time we walk down to the village through Speckled Wood we hope to see a butterfly - but we haven'r seen one there in some time. It's just too cold. We tend to go that way at about ten in the morning and at that time, with the sky cloudy and an easterly breeze, the temperature struggles to climb above 14C. In the garden we've seen the very occasional butterfly, mostly a lone white or an isolated peacock, and then only for a minute or two - hence no picture. In fact, our largest population of resident butterflies are the two whites which have taken up residence indoors in our house and show no signs of leaving.
So we have to obtain our pleasures from the birds that come to visit us. The great spotted woodpecker which first visited us a fortnight ago is now coming to feed on both the peanuts and the fat cakes. We're also seeing....
....plenty of siskins (above), goldfinches and greenfinches, all of them brilliantly dressed. However, our pleasure with the birds is being marred by....
....individuals like this greenfinch, which show signs of
trichomonosis, the disease which has brought about a 60% decline in greenfinch populations since 2005 and which is now also beginning to affect our local chaffinches. We do our best to stop its spread: the water bowls are cleaned out and refilled daily, we've reduced the number of feeders and those we do use are regularly dipped in a Jeyes fluid bath - but the disease persists.
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