May '11

Weather This Month

Max Temp = 20.2°C   Min Temp = -1.0   Mean Temp = 10.3°C  

Max Wind = 21 mph   

  Day's Of Rain Over 2mm =20 Rain 24hr Max = 16.61mm   Rain For Month = 138.4 mm

Diary

6th. We had about 5mm of rain yesterday and today a miserly 1.5mm. The strange thing is that whilst the weather has gone a lot more cloudy it did not stop a warm temp today of 20.2C being reached at 17:15. It's now 19:15 and it's still 18.6C which is very nice indeed.

Interest is all around at present with a strong suspicion that after last years very successful Bumble Bee nest we may have another nest in progress not 1m from last years. I hope so as it was fascinating to watch at close quarters.

More Swifts piled in today with many screaming...it feels like summer is nearing it's end already!

5th. Sat in the garden this afternoon, which I decided to take off, had me doing a few jobs in the garden. A lot of planting has taken place this year although strangely I am finding it difficult to locate a favourite plant that is a superb addition to the wildlife garden. The Verbena Bonarensis is superb in it's stature and it's ability to offer food to insects is superb. Other plants added are Snap Dragon, Cosmos, Hounds Tongue, Lupin, Dahlia ( all single flowering) Wall Flower and amongst others Teasle.

The Mistle Thrushes are the first to show us this years young and it has been great watching the parents feed two youngsters on the sultanas we put out to feed them and other birds.

My prediction to see Swift on 20th May may have been wrong as already several reports from the valley have been of Swifts. I shall look out for my own.

No rain for at least 3 weeks may well end today as I sit here on the decking the skies are darkening and the wind is just getting a touch fractious. To be fair the pond is in desperate need of water as I can't remember it being so low but the rain is evading us as even the forecast said rain by 16:00.....it's now 16:12 and no rain!

Late Edition. Having tempted fate on a few points I have got it wrong on two fronts. First it started raining at 16:26 today and is still lightly drizzling. The other I was very glad to be wrong about and that was the sighting of Swift. I came up into the office at 20:00 and immediately looked into the sky to see a pair of Swifts meandering quite low. Lovely sight indeed and one nobody could ever live long enough to tire from.

The other thing of note is that we are now entering dust from probably the most well known of all meteors , Halley's Comet. The meteor shower which can vaguely be noticed in the Northern Hemisphere is named Eta Aquarids. At it's peak between 5/6th May we should see about 10 meteors per hour but the Southern Hemisphere will see more like 30 per hour.