I hope that a lot of families in the village will come along. I always have a lot of interest in the garden wildlife when the garden is open for the Garden Safari weekend, particularly the moths that I catch in the garden. My aim was, and hopefully still is, to show some of the moths that live in our gardens, largely unseen to all those interested. I must admit at the beginning of the week I was doubtful if I was going to have any to show anyone. Foe nearly three weeks, since I returned from my travels, I have run my moth traps with hardly any success. Never have I known a May so bad. For instance, on the 18th May this year I caught two moths of two species, on the same day last year it was 52 moths of 22 species. This terrible situation seems to be due to the cold wet weather. The knock on effect must mean that there will be far fewer caterpillar around that many of our birds rely on to feed their young. The last two days have been significantly better and hopefully, on Sunday afternoon I'll have some moths on show, so I'm looking forward to seeing some potential young wildlife enthusiasts.
Yesterday as I was checking through my trap I was delighted to hear and then watch a Willow Warbler singing in one of the trees in the garden. This was at about 5.45 am and, not surprisingly it didn't stay around. May 23rd seems quite late for a migrant coming through, but I presume the awful spring weather has help up many of our summer visitors.
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