June 2023

It is a very warm and humid day so I have decided to stay inside and write this month’s blog.

Meanwhile outside there are some house martins trying very hard to build nests under the guttering. They haven’t done so for several years and have also ignored the boxes I put up: the sparrows however were delighted with them. Swallows are nesting somewhere in the store behind the cottages and they are also trying to build a nest under Buttermere canopy, though this is not such a good idea as it rarely holds for long. I am wondering if I am getting an increase in nest building because the newly created wild life ponds in front of Foulsyke are providing suitable mud.

The ponds in the field behind the cottages now look very established and the yellow iris have been flowering. There are also a lot of damsel flies.

One of my guests in Buttermere kindly sent me this lovely picture of what I believe is a vole who is a daily visitor on the bird feeder.

On my morning dog walks down to Crummock I regularly see a dipper on the river from the bridge by the weir. One day I had my camera with me and he very obligingly came up onto the wall.

I have been promising myself one of my favourite walks for some time so last week my friend Judy and I went to Borrowdale and walked over to Dock Tarn and Watendlath: it was as beautiful as ever.

I have also recently revisited Long Meg and her Daughters, which is the third largest surviving stone circle in England and the largest in Cumbria.

There are some stone ring carvings on Long Meg.

There is a vast amount of neolithic history here and I’m told archaeologists recognise 65 stone circles of varying sizes in Cumbria, more than in any other comparable area in the UK. Long Meg is well worth a visit and there is now a car park nearby.