We had a visit from a small group today, which is nice because we have more time to spend with them, plenty of equipment and (the best bit for me) less washing up. We did the normal pizzas and salad, and as you can see, the novelty of eating weeds didn’t seem to put them off. We also had a cabbage, apple and spring onion coleslaw because I absent-mindedly allowed them to feed the carrots to the pigs.

Empty plate

In wildlife news we had a lot of pollinators out again. We also caught quite a few grasshoppers and crickets out in the fields, though most of them were a bit too jumpy to photograph properly. I think this one is a Meadow Grasshopper.

During the afternoon we had a young blackbird wander into the building (to add to the jackdaw that managed to squeeze into the hen coop yesterday). Finally, at 5 pm, as we were holding an exciting but Top Secret meeting which may have Considerable Repercussions for the Ecocentre, two swallows flew in through the back door. One came all the way through and smacked into the front window, the other managed to turn round and fly back out. They had been flying close to the building all afternoon, sometimes flying  along the verandah under the roof and occasionally perching on the ledge under the roof as if nesting but I’m not sure why they did this. It’s never happened before.

My wife is a lot better than me in a crisis and leapt into action, scooping the stunned bird up and returning it to the air (where it flew away as if nothing had happened) before I could even think of reaching for my camera.

I bet it had a headache though.