June 2024: Quick Roundup

More a photo review this month, but perhaps some narrative will be added at a later date. 

21st June with brilliant sunshine, swifts and a scythe.

 

 

 A grey, windy first day to the month but with welcome respite on the second with sunshine, and a cuckoo calling.

Gorgeous black Pheasant

Willow fluff

Find a path ahead

Great-crested Grebe

How do you like my fringe?

Grey windy again! Juveniles busy in garden. Blackbird sings.

 

Learning to bathe -- Great Tit adult and fledgling

 

 

Broad Bean flowers

Cornflower, Rose Campion

Common Blue, garden

Robin juvenile, garden

 

Ahead the horizon

 

 

 

12 egrets, 1 buzzard

 

 

Nightjars churred at a coastal heath.

 

Days of grey cloud, with intermittent showers. A brisk north wind, and hail at one point. Some of the roses suffered, and one wonders about the bees and butterflies at such a time. The sadly now scarce Swifts are not sighted, presumed pursuing prey ahead of the weather systems.

 

 

 

Roses

Snakeshead Fritillary seeds

Blue skies, plane trails

Barn Owl quartering, 15:30

Who's afraid of the big bad raincloud? Not I!

 

House Martin

 

 

 

A good day to cut a swathe

 

 

 

 

Cherries

 

Cherries

Swift at dusk

Making Borage ice cubes

In the garden, Borage flowers were picked for ice cubes; Camomile flowers for tea.

Pimm's in the garden

White Musk Mallow opening up

Swans, cows and calves

At the Royal Norfolk Show

Swans and cygnets

Starlings, cows and calves, Little Egrets

 

 

 

 

Common Spotted Orchid

 

 

Homemade strawberry frangipane tart

Konik ponies, Holkham

Freshmarsh

Pines

Cinnabar moth

Little Tern

June 2023: Quick roundup

 June 2023 Quick Roundup

Miserable unseasonable cold to start, but with warm relief by mid-month.

Ill-health this month limits time outdoors. Missing nature, fresh air. The season turns to quieter summer. Swallowtails on the wing (but not seen yet), and cuckoos migrating away homeward.

Very few butterflies, but buzz of bees is a constant sound throughout the month.

Garden bumblebee nest quieter by end of month, as are the blackbirds and starlings now with all their young fledged. 

Green growth in abundance. Strawberries and samphire seasonal delights.

House martins, swallows and swifts lacking.

Rarity to hear or see song thrush, no longer a garden visitor.

A magpie with a limp is a regular visitor this month

 

Wood pigeon pair try again with nesting in the wisteria.

 

 

 

Shelducks, sand martins and avocets at Cley

 

 

 

A summer view from the dashboard

 

Pines, Holkham

Red-backed shrike, seen through gap in brambles

Fragrant and beautiful honeysuckle

Bright, with cold winds but humid.

More orchids seen.

Scallop tartare starter

Bright but breezy at the broads.

First Pimm's of summer

Wood pigeon washing, garden

A view from the coast road

Blickling lake

 

 

Bright rose blooms on a dull day, garden

 

Blackbird fledgling, garden

 

Collared doves, garden

 

Froglet crossing.

 

Strawberry seasonal dessert.

Cranes, original oil painting

Long summer evenings.

Robin fledgling, garden

Bee on musk mallow, garden

My sounds of June

Blackbird

Fledglings begging (blackbird, blue & great tits mostly)

Linnet, goldfinch, chaffinch, greenfinch

Swift, swallow and house martin heard infrequently