This has been another glorious weekend, with clear blue skies and temperatures around 26 centigrade. Spent Saturday exploring Rouken Glen Park with the many others who were out enjoying some fair-weather natural connections. Still, there were places to escape the crowds, most notably the gorge through which the Auldhouse Burn flows (see below). Best birds there were three Grey Wagtails and a single Dipper. Also in the park, a Goldcrest, 6 Grey Squirrels, a Mute Swan pair with 7 large young and still more Peacock butterflies. Back home, had another encounter with a Peacock butterfly, this time one which had emerged from its pupa in my garden shed. It obviously had no way to escape, and I found it dead under one of the windows. I felt so sad for it - such a miracle of nature, with such a complex life-cycle to pursue, but stopped from fulfilling that destiny by just being in the wrong.
News today (Sunday) is that Siskin has become my latest garden bird with 20 or more (including juveniles) shredding the catkins at the top of the Silver Birch trees. Also seen / heard from the garden (yesterday) were a few lingering Swallows, a cronking Grey Heron flying upstream and 7 Mallard heading the other way.
It's high summer in Silver Glade with the air full of wafting Rose bay Willow-herb seeds - but with Siskins arriving and Swallows nearly gone, the cycle is already turning again.