Sheldon Jottings – Summer 2019

It’s early June as we write these Jottings and we have had the joy of listening to many different garden birds. But for the last 3 to 4 weeks a pair of garden warblers, who will be visiting for the summer, have been singing loudly on and off all day around the middle of the village. These are quite secretive little birds but their song is a strong, well-sustained sweet, even warble of notes.

Sadly, a pair of visiting redstarts crashed into a window (even though there were window stickers) a few weeks ago and one died as a result. The other was very stunned but after a brief spell recovering on the ground, it eventually flew off.

The song thrushes know that there is much food to be had in our gardens judging by the number of empty large snail shells around. Keep up the good work thrushes!

If you want to encourage bees into your garden then get a shrub called Cotoneaster Horizontalis which is flowering at the moment. At present ours, which grow up against the sides of walls, are covered in bees, all working so hard, and there are so many different types of them – some huge, some very small. In the autumn this shrub is covered in berries which the birds love, especially the blackbirds.

Our meadows and flowery verges (which are mainly cow parsley and red campion), are looking gorgeous now and the may blossom and elder blossom are creating a wonderful display. The ash trees are almost out as these are usually one of the last trees to make their glorious show of lovely new green leaves.

The wild flower meadows are alive with insects on the tall yellow meadow buttercups, the red of the sorrel, the brown/black of the plantain and the white of the pignut, amongst others. But the all-important flower is the yellow rattle which helps to keep down the grass as it feeds off grass roots and thus enables more flowers to gain a space to grow.

Our 3rd Cream Tea Day in the village hall was on Sunday 26th May (the Bank Holiday weekend). Although the weather was not too warm there was still a good number of people scoffing the scones and we now have a steady clientele of followers who visit us regardless of the weather as our cream teas are such good value. A very good sum of £200 was raised and this all helps to keep our village hall going.

The Lucky Dip for the children also needs smallish items worth around 50p. This is a popular little ‘stall’ and was sold out quickly last year. As they all need to be wrapped please can you deliver to Bron, if possible a few days before! Here’s hoping for a beautiful day….

The last Cream Tea day will be on Sunday 25th August so go and indulge and enjoy for the last time this year!!

The £50 winner of the Church Draw for this month was Alistair Warren with number 40. Congratulations!

These Jottings are for July and August as is usual, so we wish you all a lovely summer and September will hopefully be the next issue.

DIARY DATES

Sunday 25th August – Cream Teas in the village hall 1pm – 5pm