Anglezarke

Had a lovely walk out today with my husband while the children were at their grandparents. was lovely to enjoy the peace and quiet and to hear all the birds singing. We spotted grey wagtails, a robin, some great tits and heard a wren

There was cuckoo spit everywhere but we didn't hear any cuckoos!

The woodland floor was covered with this wood sorrel - it has a pear drop taste

We found this nest on the path - its amazing how it is so intricately made

 and the inside was really hard and smooth

There were also lots of blackberries in flower - a good spot to visit in the autumn.

 This one had pinky flowers

This oak was a lot different in shape to the one in our garden.

We also spotted these oak apples

Spotted this butterfly on the brambles - not sure if it is some sort of Skipper?

We did a spot of geocaching on the way too

Lovely peaceful walk revisiting an area where Paul proposed to me many years ago!

Ants!

Take a lesson from the ants ... Learn from their ways and be wise! For though they have no king to make them work,  yet they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. Proverbs 6 v 6-8

Luke received an ant world kit at Christmas so when the nature study topic for the outdoor hour challenge was ants we thought it would be a good time to get it set up. Easier said than done! We found some ants under a rock at the front of our house and tried to entice them with some honey into a container but they were having none of it.

Next Paul and Luke invented an ant sucking tube which proved slightly better at catching them!

Eventually we managed to get almost 20 ants to make their home in the ant world.

After  nearly 2 weeks you can see where they have made lots of tunnels and they are very busy scurrying around up and down.

We looked in our Handbook of nature study and discovered some interesting facts:

• ants live in colonies with one queen
• they work together to care for the young ants and the nest
• ants can carry 50 times there own body weight!
• they stroke/pat aphids to encourage them to exude honeydew which the ant loves to eat.
• they will farm the aphids to ensure a supply of this honeydew (carrying them away from hazards and caring for their young too)
• ants will battle over territory or for the purpose of making slaves (Ben was very interested in the battle tactics of the ants!)
• the ants eyes are small as she makes most use of her antennae to give her information about her surroundings such as detecting the odour of her own nest and recognising  sister ants.

Wow what amazing creatures they are

Here are the boys nature study pages:

May Garden

Mays Garden - everything is greening up and coming into bloom.

The Hostas have started to unfold their leaves

We had a great pile of chippings delivered to use as mulch
 from a neighbours who had a tree trimmed

Orange tip butterfly spotted sat on the aquilega -
 female with its wings closed

The geraniums always put on a good show - the detail is beautiful

yellow azalea

Iris

Cornflower

We have a few varieties of Aquilega which self seed themselves around the garden

Fruit beginning to form - looking forward to the harvest soon

Strawberries

Gooseberries

figs

Raspberries

Blueberries

Potatoes

Peas

Lots of flowers ; )

In the greenhouse

Tomato

Courgette

Beans

Never spotted these seeds on the Acer before

Front garden

honeysuckle growing up the front wall

yellow iris

Geum

Red Valerian