Nature notes and oddities

The first Jersey Tiger Moth of 2008 came to my kitchen window last Saturday, and since then I have seen one every day - and they can't all be the same one fluttering round and round my house, because this morning I met one down at Coombe Park, by the creek. It flew past me and settled briefly on the side of a big white van before going into someone's front garden.

Once more this year the seasons are getting muddled, and flowers that bloom in the spring (tra-la!) are flowering again in a damp and depressing August. I have seen two magnolia trees in flower in the last couple of days, and an alpine in my garden, a kind of white Thrift, has also now suddenly produced three flower heads. We have an odd climate here - it never gets very hot or very cold, so things do happen at odd times. It's noticeable that some plants flower all the year round, or almost. Primulas, jasmine, fuschias and roses, among many others, go on and on unless and until we get a (very rare) frost to set them back a bit. Grass grows all the year round, as well, and the Hazels often have fruit and flowers at the same time.

My sparrows have suddenly disappeared. I haven't seen a single bird in the garden all day today. On the other hand, the rowans are full of birds - I saw great and blue tits, goldfinches, chaffinches, chiffchaffs and long tailed tits all in the same tree at the same time this afternoon. Only one tree is getting this treatment at the moment; perhaps it's the only one that's properly ripe. There are lots of blackberries now, and an elder down by the creek has ripe fruit, although higher up the valley they are still green. Sloes are changing colour, and I saw a hawthorn with ripe fruit at Churchtown yesterday. I hope the sparrows are just off feasting on berries somewhere and haven't decided they don't like my garden any more...