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That warm Saturday (April 26th) brought out the first butterflies of the year: holly blue, small tortoiseshell and speckled wood. They're all common garden species, but I always get a thrill when I see any of them.The female holly blue

, most of the ivy flowers are over and many of the large black berries are already well-developed.I’m rather depressed by the fact that yet another front garden is being concreted further up the road, so I peer out with the binoculars, from the fire

. Its preference for wild flowers (ladies’ smock, garlic mustard and hedge mustard) rather than cultivated brassicas means that it's less persecuted, but is also more easily overlooked.A few minutes later a holly blue, Celastrina argiolus, appeared

of the lawn, then zoomed up and away. Several holly blues were skipping about over the ivy-covered fence at the weekend, all probably freshly emerged form chrysalides buried deep inside the tangled thatch.But what really caught my eye was the pas de deux dance

I don't really do birds. I'm usually too busy peering down at insects on flowers or running across leaves. Or I'm on hands and knees, bum in the air, turning stones over looking for ground beetles or grubbing at plant roots for weevils

blues, and speckled woods.The hoverflies have appeared in earnest, and bumbles, wasps and solitary bees are everywhere. There is an audible hum, usually only heard in June. They are all squabbling over the raspberry flowers. Pond-skaters are frolicking

.Butterflies are everywhere: giant and strongly coloured graylings of some sort, flap lazily around us and even settle on our clothes; chequered skippers, blues and large heaths dart in the long grass; huge silver-streaked (or washed?) fritillaries mark out their territories

it has run a bit wild and it's a dumping ground for flower pots, buckets, pieces of wood that I once thought could be potentially useful for some reason, mildly interesting boulders found on family walks and all not very well hidden by a brightly coloured