A flawless blue sky, and Hylands House garden. Noting the insect and plant life in this 500 acres of fields and garden. The pulmonaria or lungwort bed had bumblebees but none of the pulmonaria bees - Anthophora Plumipes which have appeared in our garden on the lookout for the flowers of the Bowles Purple flowers. Pulmonaria belongs to that 'sympathetic' medicine of the middle ages, the spotted leaves look like diseased lungs, not really though, but the hairy footed, long proboscis little bee just loves lungwort, and each year I always look out for it. Cherry blossom was full of honey bees and the tattered peacock butterfly, I have never seen the brimstone round here, but note the small blue through the garden.
There are some issues between dogs on this 500 acres and people, most dogs run free in the grounds but as we passed an old golden retriever who came over to say hello in that usual friendly way, a small incident occurred. Two young parents and their toddler told the owner to put it on the lead, which was their right as we were in the garden but then the father as he passed us was phoning up and reporting the owner, which made me cross and I remonstrated with him, gently of course and we parted on good terms but such small minded pettyness is very cross making!
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| Cherry blossom and peacock, plus plenty of honey bees |
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| Exceptionally neat bedding of crocuses and primroses |
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| Canadian geese |
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| Ducks galore and marsh marigolds |
That blossom with the peacock is so beautiful. My Lungworts are only just coming into leaf!
ReplyDeleteMust be cold up on Dartmoor;), queen bumble bees bumbling around the garden at the moment trying to find suitable nests, and our hedgehog is out to, probably just waiting for the million and one worms in the compost to drop out - its grotesque every time you take the lid off!
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