Swifts

We watched as they circled the green this evening although the 'Birds of Britain' site says they are a common sight in July.


"In July evening flights of swifts wheeling high over our garden are a regular feature. Wonderfully wild screaming reveals their whereabouts although the visitors are often scarcely visible to the eye. On other occasions up to a dozen will hurtle just above the rooftops. Yet it is remarkable how infrequently one hears of aerial collisions.
During cold and windy weather parent swifts can spend long periods sitting on nests close together, or on top of each other with bodies hunched and feathers ruffled. In abnormally cold weather swifts may throw out complete clutches of eggs before themselves congregating in clusters on walls. Swifts will take shelter in their nests in heavy rain, even staying in for much of the day."


The cuckoo has also been busy in the mornings, calling for 20 minutes at a time.

And Hail!

On the same day as the wasp - I forgot.

Wasp

Just seen the first wasp hovering over my cider in the pub...

Lilac

Everywhere! I love lilac, even when it is white and not lilac at all.
There is also a lot of this, it looks like comfrey and it's everywhere, what is it? The bees love it but the local gardeners don't. I've left it in both our rented garden and our new one for the bees.

It's the first time that both dogs have settled outside too

Bluebells and nightingales

The english bluebells are now out and putting the interlopers in their place

In fact the wildflowers are all over the place at the moment as are the song birds. A cuckoo has been heard in the village this week and apparently the nightingales on the common are singing so loudly that some residents are being kept awake! It sounds as if there are some swallows nesting in the eaves of a couple of houses on the green, but I haven't seen any at the Anchor yet.

Wild garlic still abounds and we are going to have to start freezing the pesto.

More wild recipies

Following the success with the wild garlic pesto I thought I'd add some to Jo's recipe from the Covent Garden Soup book for nettle soup:

 DON'T forget the rubber gloves for picking the nettles! 

Keep the gloves on at this stage.

We substituted the garlic with the wild stuff and picked a huge amount of nettles as we didn't have any scales. It was truly delicious.

All Gone!

Wild Garlic Pesto

It worked - even if it left us all a bit, well, garlicy.

100g wild garlic
50 g parmesan or strong cheddar
50g pine nut and a few walnut mixed in
Olive oil
Salt

Put all the ingredients except the oil in a blender and slowly add the oil till you get the consistency you want. Leave it to sit for a few hours before eating. Not a great photo, but it didn't hang around for long!

There's wild garlic all over the village, but if anyone needs large quantities then let me know.