May Thoughts

May is here at last, with bluer skies and warmer days, though some are still made cold by a fresh wind that tugs washing on the line and whips colour into cheeks. It has been a dry month, with hardly any rain, the lawns are more brown than green. But everywhere else we look is so freshly green and lush; gardens are filled with flowers, weigela, lilac, clematis, honeysuckle, and aquelegias, while aubretias still course like a waterfall down garden walls.

On so many trees are tiny new catkins already stretching out, lengthening and ripening, ready for the wind to help them shed their pollen. Traveling country roads at this time of year, we pass acre upon acre of green fields, hedges and trees, their branches hanging heavy with their fresh green leaves. Willow trees look so pretty at the moment with their long weeping branches brushing the ground, or by rivers dabbling their tips in the water. Here and there amongst all the greenery an odd field of brightest yellow rape shines out like a spotlight on a darkened night.

The garden is alive with the sight and sound of bees, hoverflies, butterflies and day flying moths. Caterpillars can be found now and slugs are abundant. Fledgling robins, flutter wings showing hungry golden gapes to the world while they beg for food from their parents. Thrushes, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks and chaffinches are greedy feeders and collectors of food to take back to their nestlings. No matter how much I put out for the small birds I still find the ones who take the most are the pigeons, magpies, crows and new to the garden, jackdaws. We also have been honoured by the presence of starlings.

The little female fox has not yet brought her cubs to the garden, but she still comes nightly and carries away tightly crammed mouthful after mouthful of food, occasionally stopping to feed herself, before dashing off with another mouthful for her cubs. Two other foxes visit, both male, and never at the same time; one is slightly larger and darker than the other, he moves easily and slowly, and he always lays down to eat. The other younger, paler one is restless, looking constantly about him, starting and jumping at sounds, then rushing away and hiding in the shadows of bushes, before slowly sloping back to timidly feed again.