Nature

Nice bench – clothes optional

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A trip to RHS Bridgewater to see the recently completed Chinese Garden.

The gardens provided plenty of memorial benches to add to the Open Benches site – actually so many it became a challenge to find one that did not bear a commemorative plaque. One was notably nice:

There was also displays of photographs by Yan Wang Preston dotted through the woodland collectively known as Goose Poo & Rainbow. These showed objects that had been found whilst clearing the site for the garden. One intriguing picture was of a faded and charred piece of paper with the instructions to “Take your clothes off”.

Returning blue tits

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While we await the return of the Loch Arkaig Ospreys (due any day now) it is good to see the blue tits have returned to the hole in the wall for their nest this year. They abandoned it while the roof was being replaced in 2023:

Roof striped of old tiles with new tiles awaiting laying.

but are now making use of it again:

Returning birds

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This morning saw the return of a Heron to the local pond. A couple of years ago there was a heron nesting in a tree overlooking the pond. Time will tell if this one decides to stay.

Heron standing in shallow water. Spots of sunlight reflect of the water. Trees surround the water.

This afternoon saw the return of an Osprey to the nest at Loch Arkaig in Scotland. The nests are monitored by The Woodland Trusts‘s Osprey Cams so the hatching of chicks can be followed through the summer.

It looks like the blue tits have returned to the hole in the wall at the rear of my home to build a nest.