Lovey place to be

I just spent a lovely couple of hours at the plot. The sun was out, with a gentle breeze nudging some bees and butterflies around. The bees were large bumblebees, but I couldn't see them well enough to be sure what they were. The butterflies were small tortoiseshells busy defending territories and attracting mates. A decent flock of linnets came and sat in a holly tree nearby and sang as hard as they could, but they were drowned out by a singe wren in the hedge. Wrens must be the loudest British bird for their size. At one point a blackbird was trading bursts of song with a song thrush. Gold finches twittered across the site and a very welcome greenfinch perched on the hedge for a couple of minutes. Greenfinches have had a hard time for the past few years with a parasite called Trichomonosis killing birds here and onto continental Europe too. I hope they are making a comeback.

I weeded some of the ground and planted out the broad beans. They have been waiting to go out for rather too long. They are too tall, although they were not yet pot bound. I decided to stake each plant to stop any breeze snapping them off. I also nipped off the tops of some of the taller ones to try to get them to bush up a bit. All of this took longer than you might expect as I lingered over watching butterflies, bees and birds. I hope there are more days like this for the rest of the spring.