And at the start of the month we had International Nature Journaling Week, with daily prompts and lots of links to resources and workshops, on top of a whole load of guest blogs which give a great insight into keeping a nature journal from many perspectives (including mine!). Take a few minutes to check it out.
To finish the month there's National Insect Week - celebrating the little things that pollinate our plants and keep our ecosystems healthy - followed by Swift Awareness Week, which takes us into July.
We started off with the same warm and sunny weather that we'd enjoyed in May. The flowerbed is looking rather lush...
I've continued watching the peregrine chicks via the webcams at Leamington Spa and Nottingham. As the chicks grew, they became quite mobile and often disappeared from view of the cameras completely.
One of the prompts for Nature Jounaling Week was 'Nature Finds' - definitely a strength of mine as I'm always filling my pockets with interesting bits and pieces to draw later.
Of course, you don't need flora and fauna to be able to make a nature journal entry - for June 6th I kept track of the weather, with four drawings of the same patch of sky across the afternoon.
With the promise of rain in the following few days, I made the most of the last of the dry weather with a walk round the fields. So many different grasses - made me realise how little I know about them, even their names. So I've bought a field guide, though of course it's not as easy as you might think to ID them all...
This was the sky before the weather finally broke...
The much-needed rain eventually arrived (we'd had the sunniest/driest May in a long time), and within a couple of days the log pile was sprouting some fabulous fungi - Jelly Ear :-)
When the weather turned warm and sunny once more I decided to repeat my Soundscape experiment of a couple of months ago (no great hardship there!). Sat myself in a sunny spot and listened to all that was going on around me. Not as many different birds as last time, and the wood pigeons weren't quite as constant - a very pleasant and peaceful way to spend a mindful hour or so.
Solstice weekend was warm and humid, and rather hot when the sun came out! I spent some time watching the comings and goings in the flowerbed. Amazing what you see when you take the time to watch a while.
And on some flowers at the front of the house, a not-very-camouflaged speckled bush cricket nymph! Once I'd spotted one of these, they seemed to be everywhere. We usually get one or two of the adults in the house at some point later in the summer, and I assume it's these that I can sometimes hear on my bat detector.
My final journal entry for the month concerned a favourite insect - the lacewing. What's not to love about these delicate little creatures, whose larvae are absolutely ferocious when it comes to dealing with aphids! This one caught my eye as it fluttered about in a shaft of sunlight. It then landed on my wine glass and made its way to the small drop of liquid remaining at the bottom, had a drink then flew off again :-)
And always a treat - a visit from a hedgehog! This one was out and about fairly early in the evening, but looked bright and healthy as it made its way around the edge of the garden, under the shrubs, before disappearing under the fence.
So a great June, despite still being in some kind of pandemic lockdown. Restrictions are easing somewhat (for now anyway) so perhaps it's time for me to visit some local nature reserves at last!
