Recovery: The Garden Diary.

The bats are back. Anyone reading this blog in the old days might remember me waxing eloquent about the bats at twilight. It was the delight of the day to stand among them during their feeding frenzy, but then the long, cold winter of 2012/13 decimated their numbers and they’ve never recovered since.

This year they have, and once again I’m able to stand outside on a warm evening being thrilled by a veritable tribe of the little creatures flying rapidly around the house and pirouetting at mesmeric speed. And some of them are bigger than others, so I’m hoping they’re a family and the kids will survive next winter to carry on the tradition. They might even multiply.

There are also very many more butterflies in the garden than there have been in recent years, and even two species I haven’t seen here before. The bees are still a cause for concern, though. There are plenty of bumble bees, but still very few honey bees. I assume it’s why my apple tree has failed to crop for about five years now. And there’s also a dearth of wasps, maybe because the apple tree is failing and wasps seem to be particularly attracted to fruit. Maybe they’ll appear in numbers once the plums begin ripening. It seems odd to most people that I like wasps, and yet I do. They’re good looking and I don’t find them at all threatening as long as I accept their presence with equanimity.