in the night garden ..

The secrets of the night. Hidden by darkness and perhaps our laziness in not being outside as the sun goes down.

There's coughing and snuffling in the Woodland Garden. I stand listening and a small fox cub catapults from beneath an elder and across my feet. Each equally surprised. I fear for the hens. But I've spent a weekend with my little grandson and sentimentally see him in all young creatures. My cameras catch the cubs at play.

Peppered moth

At dusk, tiny common pipistrelle bats click the bat detector, high between trees, 45kHz. By the pond, lower and echo-locating higher at 55kHz are their cousins, soprano pipistrelle bats. We watch them for some time, sometimes just above our heads, thankful Jill isn't sporting her seaside hair.. Seemingly larger than common pipistrelles. Weaving circles and ellipses.

The tawny babies continue to squeak throughout the night, now in the Cedar Walk or in the wood beyond - it is difficult to judge. We think we can hear three calling - perhaps even the littlest owlet fledged?  There seem to be plentiful small mammals. We watch a vole from the kitchen window... Tentative. Out from beneath shrubs in the Fragrant Garden.

Ragwort attracting meadow brown
and gatekeeper butterflies

By night, hedgehogs are visiting both cafes. Or perhaps one glutton? This year I wait to see two together. There's hedgehog poo in the grass of the no-mow part of the lawn.

We are out with our moth light. 61 moths of 23 species. A peppered moth. The masterpiece of camouflage that is the buff tip moth, which appears no more than a short piece of stick. And more red-and-black cinnabar moths than we've ever recorded - perhaps because we welcome their host plant, the unfairly-maligned ragwort. It's leaves are toxic but its long-lasting yellow daisy flowers work hard throughout summer providing a nectar source for insects. The cinnabar lays her eggs on the ragwort. They hatch to become black-and-yellow caterpillar tigers.

Tonight we visit the little owl nest box to check on, and hopefully ring, their young.