I am lucky in that occasionally I am allowed to go out to work for my husband, doing bits of gardening at people's maisons secondaires. Now is the start of the rapid growing season for grass, and if we don't stay on top of it now, we will damage our mowers and kill ourselves dealing with 3 foot high hay when lockdown is over. So we go out, armed with our attestations, including where possible attestations from the property owner as well, and work where people are not around. Or if we were to be faced with someone on the property, we would be on the phone to the Boys in Blue asking for help with trespassers.
Yesterday I was at a site where there is a lovely wildflower meadow, and I was checking how it was doing, and if it had gone to far for its early season cut. In about another 2 weeks, the orchid rosettes will be too advanced, but if we leave it too long, the brambles and other undesirable scrub will take over. That meadow has a badger's set right in the middle. You can see their footprints in the fresh soil (and evidence of the deer and birds that pass through too), as they clear out any rubbish and head off for their "bathroom" zone.
Today I was back mowing at the house with a lake. I'd been keeping an eye out for frogspawn but hadn't spotted it this year so far, so I was astounded to notice lots of recently hatched tadpoles in the water - there is a great mass of them to the left of the submerged rock, a sort of dark mass, but you can see others too.
The final nature note was that as I was mowing around a birch tree, I noticed a lot of wood chip. The woodpeckers are back and making a mess again!
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