Three Birds Flying...

A generally damp and rather dismal day, which meant I made progress on some of the many reports waiting to be written. Ben continued his work experience by entering the data from my hay-meadow survey and helping to produce summary maps of the data from my breeding bird transects in Thorpe Wood. He is naturally methodical and careful - ideal attributes for this sort of work!

In the evening I took Pete and Chris to the station for their next stint in Kent. The sun appeared briefly and I considered going for a summer solstice walk, but didn't quite have the energy. Instead I strolled round the garden, which is reaching a crescendo of colour. This is one of my favourite recent additions, Linaria ornithophora, a species from Spain and Portugal that is borderline hardy, but grows easily from seed, and has pink parrot-like flowers arranged in whorls of three (or sometimes four).

I've added an extra image of the second brood of blackbirds that have been raised in our rather dilapidated shed. In the afternoon all three offspring were in the nest, but by evening they had fledged - three birds flying!