The Toll of a Long Winter.

I’m still seeing only one bat of an evening. In previous years there have always been between three and five hunting together, and I have little doubt that responsibility lies with the long, cold winter. I feared as much at the time. What must it be like waking up to find your companions all dead? And I wonder whether bats are capable of feeling sorrow.

It’s the same with the butterflies. We’ve had five very warm and sunny days since last Friday, and that would usually be the cue for the garden to fill with about ten different species of butterfly. Today I’ve seen two – one Small White and one Tortoiseshell. Yesterday I saw one; the day before was the same. And the bees seem to be almost as depleted.

You know, few things generate the ambience of an English cottage garden more than the flashing colours of butterflies and the soporific humming of bees. I read somewhere that last winter played havoc with their populations, and that’s a shame.