Where has the summer gone?

I am writing this during possibly the hottest day of the year.

Aside from the world imploding around us; what with global pandemics, lockdown restrictions, explosions in Lebanon, ash dieback in Somerset and Brexit looming, it actually has been a rather lovely summer.

The garden at Walls Farm has never looked so good. We have had a bumper crop of vegetables, the roses have been stunning since late April, and now in early August the agapanthus are a brilliant blue reminding us of happy family holidays on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly where we were given a sack-load of bulbs as they are like weeds in the sand dunes there.

Tresco agapanthus

I still have to cut the grass every week, and I have never known it to be so lush green in colour in August - no brown patches this year. For this summer has been a delightful mixture of pleasant sunny weather followed by refreshing showers. April and May were hot, but the garden had enough water in the ground to cope, and just when I started to water with the hose-pipe, overnight the heavens would open.

Walls Farm still looking very lush

Birds in the garden have been a joyous and constant part of daily life.

Pied wagtails bred in the log shed; robins, tits, goldcrests, thrushes, and house sparrows all have raised their broods. Bullfinches sing constantly in the hedges, Jays, woodpeckers and buzzards have always been with us.

There was excitement when we thought we saw a spotted flycatcher feeding young - but could not positively ID it. However surely our highlight of the summer was the arrival of our first singing lesser whitethroat - and later confirmed sightings of the female feeding youngsters.

Over the summer in total three new birds have been added to the ‘Garden List’ for Walls Farm, that of the lesser whitethroat, shelduck and marsh harrier (not at the same time tho’) taking our total now to 80 different species seen in, or from our garden. The Shelducks (a pair?) flew in a direct line over the garden, heading for the coast, and there were actually three marsh harriers soaring high overhead, in the direction of Blackford Moor.

Sadly no swallows have bred this year - it was all going so well when they arrived in early April and started to build their nest in the garage. The Volvo was getting splattered daily, but that was OK, it is a bit like your kids being messy around the house. We are always proud of ‘our’ swallows. Then they disappeared. I am sure I saw a rather smug-looking sparrowhawk patrolling the garden around that time. That said, there are always many swallows around the house coming over from neighbouring farms, and feeding over our pond.

The singing stopped mid-June as expected, and in July we were lucky enough to get away to Scotland for a couple of weeks, where we saw red-throated divers, sandwich terns, diving gannets and several ospreys. It was bliss.

Now home Stephen and I have been back out checking our various patches, mostly at this time of year we go to the coast where already we have seen the first migrants heading south - black-tailed godwits, and dunlin - Stephen also spotted the first wheatear passing through.

So summer is over - official.

Even if it is 30 degrees outside, the birds are on the move again. Indeed just yesterday (9th August) I saw an osprey flying south over Wedmore Tennis Courts - I wondered if it might have been one of the birds I had seen in Scotland just a few weeks ago - all very exciting, and certainly put me off my serve!

Our first organised tour will take place 22-24 September ‘Somerset’s autumn migrants’ with new social distancing measures in place, and facemasks to be worn in the van. Then during the winter months, we will hopefully be back to share the spectacle of our magnificent starling murmurations.