It was a public holiday in Germany today and it was warm and sunny (with the occasional thunderstorm).

The common whitethroat continues to skulk about in the bird cherry. This is a typical view we get of him.

The family of white wagtails was feeding down by the pond again. Here's a photo of one of the youngsters.

I was delighted to see a hobby flying overhead. We've only seen this species here once before.

The cotoneaster in the front garden is in full flower and it was buzzing with honeybees and other insects. It smells fantastic too.

A couple of blue tit families were also around the house. Here's a terrible photo of one of the fledglings.

I took a photo of what I thought was a buzzard. I only took one photo of it as a buzzard isn't generally that interesting. Now I've looked at this photo, I was initially unsure whether it was a buzzard. I've since found out that white buzzards are a thing - it's just a different colour variation.

I found a couple of geometrid caterpillars on the plum tree we bought to breed the two brown hairstreak eggs I collected last year. Those eggs didn't come to anything, but I'm glad the tree is still making itself useful. These caterpillars are too small to identify yet, so I'll have to keep them for a while.

After a really interesting day, it was a wonderful surprise to see a forester moth on one of the few scabious flowers left after the cow's visit. We last saw this species in 2015 so it was a bit of a concern that it wasn't doing well here.

The day started promisingly with a kestrel at the top of a nearby tree.

We've had a lot of squirrels in the garden recently and a lot of them are showing their summer moult. Some have red hands and black bodies. This one had reddish pants.

The common whitethroat I'd seen yesterday was still around and my patience finally paid off when he came out into the open. I caught him eating pin galls off the bird cherry leaves.

The hail we had earlier in the week has left a lot of leaves with holes in. These ones formed an unhappy face.

There still aren't many birds in the garden at the moment but we did have a brief visit from a common redstart and a siskin.

I found this small caterpillar on the tiny bindweed plant we have in our front garden. I'm pretty sure this is a white plume moth caterpillar. I've collected it so I should find out in a few weeks.

As usual, some white wagtails have arrived with the cows and are enjoying the insects they stir up.

There was a fledgling down by the pond today. Here's a photo of it being fed by one of its parents.

We were again surprised to see a whinchat on the Harrerbuckel today. Previously, we've only seen passage migrants in April and August. This looks like a youngish male and he was singing as if he was trying to establish a territory.

The hawthorn is in full blossom and it is the best we've seen in the five years we've been here.

This beetle was in the front garden. I'm pretty sure it is Agapanthia villosoviridescens.

This juvenile blackbird was also in the front garden today.

Christine unwittingly brought home a small caterpillar on some spignel she collected. This looks like the caterpillar of one of the blue butterflies, but there are none that I know of that feed on spignel - so this could be quite interesting.

Once again, we've spent a couple of weeks back in the UK, so there have been no diary entries for a while.

When we returned, all the bird feeders were empty and there are hardly any birds visiting the garden at all.

Across the valley, we can see that there are a couple of ghost trees. Presumably these are bird cherry and they have been stripped by bird-cherry ermine caterpillars. The bird cherry on our driveway has a few small webs of caterpillars, but luckily they haven't got out of control like those shown in the photos here.

I've included a photo of one of the few birds we saw today - a passing grey heron.

The cows came to the valley today. I'd only just been up to our triangle of land to check up on the orchids. They were just beginning to flower - but they'll probably be gone in a day or so - along with all the other interesting plants which we had up there.