The last few days the weather has been beautiful. I’ve been outside pottering in the garden and enjoying the summer and have not wanted to turn on the computer once I’ve arrived home from work in the evening. I guess that fits quite well with the #30dayswild ethos, but it’s meant that the blogging has fallen behind. So, here’s a catch up with my random acts of wildness.

Today I enjoyed the garden in the evening. We pottered, played with the guinea pigs and ate our dinner outside. My Random Act of Wildness for today is having a story published in our local badger group newsletter. I contribute regularly, whether it’s a story from a march against the badger cull, information about seasonal forgaging or in this case, an article about a local walk and some information about the 30dayswild challenge! It was also great to read that a cub has been spotted at our local badger sett this year.

Tonight it was time for the last of the “special” events that I booked at the beginning of the month- a summer paddle at Dinton Pastures Country Park. The Park is set around a series of lakes in old gravel pits from the building of the A329M. It’s a great place to visit with lots of water life, great walks, bats and tonnes of minibeasts. There’s also a great play area for kids. On one of the lakes there is a water sports centre and it was there we headed this evening to head out onto Black Swan Lake as the sun went down for an evening paddle in a kata canoe. It was wonderful. The sunset was stunning, we watched a heron fly over, saw grebes, coots and ducks on the water, and watched the moonlight reflect in the dark lake water. It was an amazing evening!

I was working today, at a summer fair, promoting recycling. I had chance to have a wander around some of the other stalls and was able to pick up some more plants for our pollinator border, as well as some great natural history books. I love old flower guides, natural history books and the like, so finding these in a box on a charity stand made my day.

I especially liked this old penguin book, on sea birds. The illustrations are beautiful.

In the evening, we relaxed in the garden, ate dinner outside and watched the bees. We chatted about our day. Phil had a close encounter of the wild kind today when a charm of goldfinches in the hedge out back took flight and fluttered and swirled around him. Fantastic! The sky was beautiful, we’ve seen some fantastic skies during these thirty days.

Today was a relaxed day. I took part in National Unplugged Day, so no tv, no phone, no computer, which made a really nice change. It is fair to say that I have moderate addiction issues with my phone, so it was good to not have the distraction of checking social media/ the news/ blogs and so on every five minutes. Instead I pottered, checked out what was living in the plum tree- ladybirds and their larvae have moved in to quell the aphid uprising and a funky caterpillar (which we think is from a white marked tussock moth) is in residence. The bees are still very interested in the honeydew and a couple of wasps have joined the party. In the garden there are more hoverflies and I have noticed more tiny bees, although I haven’t been able to photograph any. I’m really enjoying noticing more of the small creatures in the garden. This challenge has opened my eyes and the unplugged day gave me the time to really look in detail at the life in our garden. We also headed to the garden centre for a few more pollinators, our 30dayswild project is almost complete…