Days 24 -26 #30Days Wild: Woodpeckers, Butterflies, Streams and Friends.

I thought weather had broken over the weekend but today was a gorgeous sunny, warm day without too much wind and so I took the baby out for our butterfly transect walk. We only met one other person at the end of the walk. The freedom and joy of hiking through the long grass as clouds of butterflies few up was unparalleled. There were many small skippers about and I caught a glimpse of swallows perching on wires. I have separated 6 near froglets and several larger tadpoles from the many in the tank that is now topped up with stream water we collected again from the river in an impromptu after-school picnic.

A large skipper now amongst many other butterflies on Speltham

swallows on wires

Goat's Beard

The oldest kids have reached a "river island"

The perilous crossing on stepping stones to reach the island

Swathes of Meadowsweet

One of the best things about day 26 of our random acts of wildness was bumping into our friend with her young toddler who is a similar age to my youngest. She has just moved into the village where we go to the stream and we offered to show her our secret wild place. Her baby can toddle very fast and is "on the go" compared to our baby who is still just crawling and sitting and dependant on us to show him the water. It was a great exercise for my older children to show which parts of the river and stream were suitable for the little boy to paddle in holding his mum's hand. We also shared our wild thoughts and picnic. I've mentioned before in commenting on others' blogs that sometimes we need a friend or other people to engage in nature around us. "Wild" does not have to mean "solitary"

We spent most of Sunday having dinner at a friend's house in town so today my post is of a book I started reading which has amazing descriptive wild powers. It is "H" is for Hawk.

I had let the day fly by in a whirl of indoor children's sports: swimming, gym badge day. Little heed paid to a nature activity. And as I contemplated my lack of wildness at the kid's bedtime we spotted not one but three juvenile green woodpeckers in our garden. One had landed on the hammock frame. I don't have a good telephoto lense to capture such a sight but it is ingrained on my memory forever. Wonderful!

Spot the baby woodpecker from the window!