Evolution of a wild flower domestic lawn with Yellow Rattle doing well and lots of bees.

 This is one of the patches of lawn being left unmown.

 Yellow rattle seeds were scattered the year before last and the plants are just showing well now.
They are hemiparasitic on grasses, whose vigour is reduced, enabling more species to grow.

 A Red-tailed bumblebee was on the lawn yesterday.  She came onto my finger for a photo-shoot but flew off before a focused picture was taken.  You do get an idea of her size and lack of aggression though.

Woodpecker proof nest-box

 A woodpecker attacked the far nest-box a couple of years ago: please see http://sussexrambler.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/great-spotted-woodpecker-attacking-blue.html for the gruesome attack.  The box was patched up with bits of old tile but has not been reused since.
An additional box was made from stouter timber and "armour-plated" with roof tiles.
No woodpecker will get in there now.  The Great tit pair busily feeding their young inside are all safe this year: of that I'm sure.  The entrance gap is tiny.  I was concerned that it was too narrow but not so it seems.

Update on 18th May 2016.
Both parents are busy feeding an increasingly noisy brood inside the box.  I imagine that the fledglings will have the strength and ability to leave the box any day soon. "Amour-plating" a homemade wooden box with clay roof tiles has worked well and done its job so far.

Lathraea clandestina, purple toothwort, flowering now

 A parasitic plant lacking chlorophyll and green leaves, Lathraea clandestina is a European species colonising southern counties.  In Sussex, you can see it in various areas at Wakehurst Place and in damp parts of Nyman's woods and elsewhere.

A Common Carder bee worker was active visiting the flowers yesterday in the Loder valley.