24th July

I have to admit I didn’t want to get up this morning. All because we were kept awake for much of the night by an amazing electrical storm. I don’t remember seeing anything like it before, just flash after flash and rumbling thunder it did get close for a little while but not overhead and just a flurry of rain. I was hoping for more rain for the garden but it didn’t happen. We both watched from the bedroom window at Hambledon hill being lit up, if I had been more awake I maybe would have taken a video on my iPad!

But a creature of habit I got up as usual to take Tilly out for a walk. Pleased I did, in the end as it was an exciting morning. There were two Hares in the field, although at a distance. One soon went but one stayed and we managed to get quite close by using the cover of a clump of trees in the field. There was also a Roe doe grazing in the field under the hill.

I could hear the Stonechats as I come off the hill in the wheat field but no sighting. I decided to walk down the path towards Oasis garden centre, so pleased I did as this bird flew out of the trees and landed a distance away, my initial thoughts were Buzzard but it was too ginger coloured and too small, I thought Red Kite but still wasn’t sure. It came out of the trees again and soon disappeared and then I heard a distinctive hoot. A Tawny owl which was great!

As a postscript Rod, my husband had a glimpse of a Barn Owl crossing the bottom of the garden last evening and also we had a Greater spotted Woodpecker on the fat balls this morning, still plenty to see even in the heat of the summer.