Sunday 17th June

Helens parents were visiting this week and on Wednesday we took them to the wood for a hour so they could put a place to the stories, they seemed quite impressed, even though the birds did not really show themselves while they were there.

The weather forecast was slightly less good this weekend and it turned out to be quite cloudy with quite a strong breeze, but still really quite warm.
Summer is on the way and the trees have more leaves every week, the view from the yardarm is now out onto a wall of green.

and there are lots of foxgloves on the top of the wayleave as well as some colonising into the wood by our tent and the hive.

The rose in the gully behind the yardarm has flowered and it seems to be a Small White Rambling Rose (Rosa multiflora)

I was on call so needed to have phone signal today so stayed at the top in the wayleave and by the Hive for most of the day. I started by clearing brambles in the wayleave, and was surprised by a baby fallow deer as I stood by the fire site, it came round the rhodies walked right past me, not six inches away, and headed off down towards our tent. Shame it all happened too fast for a photo! I also thought the buzzards were back for a fleeting moment, but although one did fly over calling it must have been on it's way somewhere else.

The other wildlife was very strange this weekend. After weeks of fending off swarms of horse flies (Joanne has managed to identify them for me as the common horse fly (Haematopota pluvialis)) this week I did not see a single one, and whilst there were lots of birds audible in the trees some way away not a single one came down to the food in the half hour I was in the yardarm.

Once the top of the wayleave was pretty clear I moved into the clearing towards the hive and ended up with a good pile of bramble, and it looks much clearer. Then I moved on to pulling bracken in the section by Rais, it looked really bad but actually was not nearly as dense as previous years and there was plenty of green left once the bracken was gone. To wrap up I cleared the bracken by the hive (again!) and then headed home.

On Monday night I went down for an hour to see if the squirrel would come down if I put some food out and sat quietly. He did not come to the nuts but I did see him on the tree close enough to have a shot, if I had the gun! The birds were absent again, although it was evening and they were vocal not far away, and I did see a very brave Chaffinch at the top of the wayleave and a tree creeper on the twisted oak. Since yesterday the grass has flowered and the wayleave is suddenly quite white rather than green!