Doldrums

 Sunday September 11

Plenty of birds around at the coast during the last week or so. Whinchats, Pied Flycatchers, Wrynecks, etc. All needed walking.  We satisfied ourselves with jobs at home. Together, we managed to prune the Greengage and Victoria plum trees. This involved sawing off a few hefty branches, using a pruning saw. Pam can't lift her arms very high and I have difficulty in standing......between us, we managed. Fortunately, Adrian came to clear up the debris, and to anoint the trees' wounds, between heavy showers on Friday.

The bane of my gardening life is a tiny purple,clover-leafed, weed named Oxalis. Its roots are tiny, very deep, easily broken - and it spreads like mad. However well I weed my alpine plant sinks and troughs, even digging out plants in order to remove the weed from between their roots, it comes back with a vengeance. I've had another go this week, now that it's cooler and we've had some rain to soften the ground. 

Pam has been busy using up the tomatoes. This year's main plants, Ailsa Craig, have been prolific , but not the tastiest. The cucumbers don't like the cooler nights, growing shorter, tubby, fruits curled up at the end. Well, it is almost mid September.

The moth catch is showing signs of Autumn too, Centre-barred Sallow being the first to show. We have trapped three more magnificent Convolvulus Hawk-moths, they are having a good year. This one exposed its raspberry striped body.

 

Best this last week has been a Gothic, new for the garden. Although shown on the Norfolk Moths website as being recorded in 54 of 74, 10 kilometre squares, none have been recorded in 2022. I've only seen one before, at Cley. A graph shows this moth as dropping in numbers, rather alarmingly it seems.



We drove to Cley Beach this morning, hoping for some sea watching. A day too late for the Skuas and Black Terns seen yesterday! The sea was flat calm, a few Sandwich Terns, gulls, Cormorants and Greylag Geese the only fly-bys. It was nice trying.

 

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