The sounds of summer

I was sitting in the hangar on Saturday pricking out seedlings when a familiar droning note caught my ear. A turtle dove streptopelia turtur tourterelle des bois! This sound, along with the calls of swifts heard for the first time this year on Friday, says "summer" to me. He was sitting in the walnut tree, a splendid male, his neck jewellery shining in the sun as he purred away. I called Tim, who got a few pictures obscured by branches before the bird flew down into the meadow on the other side of the millstream.

I carried on potting - you can't leave a tray of seedlings half done - and I could still hear the dove. The sound was coming from the ground, in the meadow. Then Tim was beside me, showing me a photograph of two turtle doves. Not bad going for half a day's work!

So you made it past Malta as well?