weather and buntings

1 June
Late frosts and scorching heat - what a spring, drought and hosepipe bans looming.
The reed buntings are back nesting at church end for the second year. On Wednesday on the way back from Pickering I saw a small flock of males and females on the common darting in and out of the sieves and perching on the tops of the very short newly emerged bracken.  And today there are reports of a large number of lapwing near Sillas.  It's been an odd spring, the bracken is only just beginning to show and now on the first of June the hawthorn  is only now in full flower but all the apple blossom has gone over and the elders are no where near so the elderflower fizz will have to wait.  The scorching heat of last week has passed and we've had a couple of days of rain for which the garden and farmers are truly grateful, everything has begun to grow again.  the rain has meant that the owls have been taking it in turns to occupy the wires, they've been nicknamed Fat Wol and Thin Wol - for pretty obvious reasons, Thin Wol has a paler more creamy front with very definite speckles whilst Fat Wol is darker all over and usually likes to sit a bit further out so you see her feet more clearly. One evening this week there was obviously confusion over the timetable as both were present for about 15 minutes which gave us a lovely opportunity to compare and contrast.