Monday July 31

I haven't really done anything since my last post, other than look out of the kitchen window.

Our feeders were deluged in birds on Saturday. Its very difficult to assess the numbers when birds are visiting regularly, but my best estimate would be 12 Long-tailed Tits, 12 Blue Tits, six Great Tits, two Coal Tits, three Robins, a Dunnock, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Bullfinch, a Song Thrush, three Blackbirds, a Wren, a Goldfinch, and five House Sparrows.

I fear for the last of these because we finally bit the bullet and arranged for our guttering and fascia to be replaced. Some of the wood was rotting due, it seems, to errors made by some guys carrying out loft insulation about ten years ago. My worry is that the House Sparrows will not like the change and may not breed next year. We'll see.

Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker

Juvenile Song Thrush

The last House Sparrows ?

Juvenile Robins

Finally, on Sunday afternoon a "small orange butterfly" which Lyn had been seeing (and which I had been assuring her would be a Comma) landed on the Scabious and was actually a Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper

Too cool for moths though.

But hold the front page: Just squeaking into July was a Brimstone Moth caught tonight in the bathroom.

Brimstone Moth

Its that rare thing, a pretty moth. They turn up every year in our garden though.