After the heat of May, June was cooler, with some welcome showers to help retain the brilliant green of vegetation and save the growing fruits from drying out. The most important benefit though was to maintain the proliferation of insect life - providing food essential for young birds.
Bees of course continued their work as pollinators:
Bee on Bramble flower.
There was a record amount of Bramble blossom this June which quickly became covered in bees, mostly Honeybees but also Bumblebees - White-tailed, Buff-tailed and Red-tailed Bumblebees, not forgetting butterflies and Hover flies.
In additions to the Bramble blossom, wild flowers such as clovers were growing exceptionally well in grassland and formed dense carpets in places, their abundant nectar and scent attracting more insects:
White Clover trifolium repens -
hopefully this will spread and increase, together with the earlier Dandelion plants.
Red Clover Trifolium pratense
Bumblebees pollinate its flowers.
It is so good to see the return of Clovers to grassland - and of course other wild flowers such as Dandelions and Daisies.
The 2nd June 2020 was fine and warm, becoming windy later, with most birds still nesting. Adults seen carrying food to nests or feeding fledged young were chiffchaffs, pied wagtails, carrion crows, blackbirds, blackcaps, wrens, robins, dunnock, goldfinches, goldcrests and several preoccupied song thrushes so intent on preparing snails for their young they hardly noticed me on the path of hard stones. As the wind increased, a common buzzard was seen sailing over the river course.
A Banded Demoiselle damselfly male was seen ranging across a field next to the river, flying low under the wind and a Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly male was perching on a wide Hazel leaf in the sun.
The next few days were cloudy and cooler with more showers. On 5th June, it was interesting to see an adult goldcrest fly from a Scots pine in pursuit of a moth almost larger than itself - dashing in a zigzag route from the tall tree. Halfway down the goldcrest nipped the moth's wing and it fell to the ground where the bird retrieved it and carried it up to its nest high in an outer pine branch.
On 7th June the activity of feeding young continued but with some blackbirds, blackcaps, house sparrows, wrens and robins singing quietly and a nuthatch calling.
Another male Banded Demoiselle damselfly was seen over the bank.
Loud calls were suddenly heard -
this was common buzzard being chased over the bridge by carrion crows - all the noise coming from the crows not the buzzard, which quickly shook them off. Higher up over the trees a swift was seen on its own but four greylag geese were flying south beyond it.
A Southeasterly breeze and some sun on 9th June encouraged some birds to sing more - dunnock, wrens, common whitethroat, nuthatch, robins, blackbird song thrushes, chiffchaffs, house sparrows and of course the master-singer of the summer here - the blackcap - all very audible. Calls from a magpie and a group of herring gulls could not compete with loud calls from a grey heron being harassed by the gulls. It flew off towards a pond. Blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits, many juveniles amongst them were foraging in the riverbank trees, some drying off after bathing in the river. Wrens - very numerous here seemed to combine nest-building or re-building with singing - a large fluffy Woodpigeon feather was seen flying low across the river - carried by an invisible wren.
Bramble blossom was still attracting many bees.
The next few days were partly overcast with drizzle - the grey heron, or more than one, was heard calling several times, together with herring gulls; the fledged pied wagtails were still being fed by the adults; crowds of fledged house sparrows were joining in with singing and bathing and small numbers of swifts were seen most days catching insects under the clouds.
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