Knapweed

The knapweed in the new daffodil bed at the bottom of the garden, last noticed just over a year ago, has come up again and is now a little past its best. Presumably a perennial, so it will keep on coming for the time being.

The ants' nest at the base of the knapweed, just about visible here, is also alive and well with plenty of evidence of activity, but with no ants. Whatever they do, they must do it at night. Or perhaps they are sensitive to footfall on the hard, dry ground and disappear underground before I can get anywhere near them. Perhaps they are engineered to be wary of large anteaters, common in southern England at the time their genes were active.

I can also record a sighting of swifts over Portland Place, Epsom, just two or three of them, unlike the dozens I saw out of out window at the Royal Lion in Lyme Regis last week. We were told that there were more there than is usual, so perhaps that is true here as well. A quick search reveals a couple of sighting of same from the train to Waterloo during 2016, one of which is to be found at reference 2.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/06/lots-of-floral.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/nature-notes.html.