A Swift visit to Malmesbury

    A couple of weeks ago I popped down to Malmesbury for the official opening of the Waitrose store there (see previous blogs here and here). I’d been down a week earlier too and the changes since the spring, and in that last week, were quite amazing. ‘Just in time’ hardly covers it! Whereas…

Malmesbury revisited

The last time I was in Malmesbury there was a Fieldfare looking over the building site; this time there was a Chiffchaff.  Whether the Chiffchaff’s song was celebrating the activity on the site of what will be a new Waitrose store is difficult to know, but there was certainly a lot going on with around…

Shifting butterfly baselines

It’s the Easter weekend and it’s cold and a bit wet – not ideal weather for butterflies.  So far, in east Northants this year, I’ve seen commas, peacocks, speckled woods, brimstones and orange tips.  It’s a start. Through the year I will hope to see white admirals, black hairstreaks, purple emperors, white admirals, purple hairstreaks…

Butterflies, Sir David, Ingrams, Waitrose and windfalls

I’ve done my bit for Butterfly Conservation this weekend and carried out a Big Butterfly Count in the back garden. This very serious survey was postponed as when the rain fell this morning I nipped in to Waitrose in Rushden to stock up on cheap white wine and found that my local Waitrose store was…