Bees Looking for a Room, Nature Waiting for Rain and I Find Beauty in the Details

Nature Diary | April 2025

Apr 26, 2025

I’m on a quest for a life closer to nature by taking walks, gardening (and rewilding our garden), paying attention to the seasons and all kinds of weather more, enjoying different landscapes, watching animals, noticing small and delightful details, reading all kinds of books about nature. I enjoy it so much!

This is what happened in April.

Walks

31st March / 4th April / 10th April

April started cold, and the nights were even frosty until the middle of the month. The green in our garden that others would like to call a lawn (but frown upon because it isn’t any more, it’s in transition), was white with hoarfrost every morning. Even when the sun came up, the frost stayed long in the shadowy parts. The sun had not yet found its strength to warm up nature for spring.

I’ve found a new favourite walking route just outside of the small town where I live. I first discovered it in February. The small road out of town leads to the north-east into the countryside past meadows, fields and very few farms, and when you turn right onto an ever smaller farm road, there’s plenty of green nothingness, no cars and just the occasional dog walker, if any. It’s a nice round for a walk, usually just short of ninety minutes, depending how often I stop to look at something interesting or beautiful or just to breathe and let my gaze wander over the meadows or to the forest in the distance. It’s a pretty open landscape and you can see the sky in a way that just isn’t possible in town. I feel like I breathe deeper when I reach the end of the settlement and the view widens out.

I enjoyed going for a walk in the early mornings, bundled up in my warm jacket and cherishing the fresh air, the cold and the sun just rising. Most peoples’ days hadn’t even started, and I was already out in nature.

I love to watch clouds, white or all shades of grey, sometimes hanging so low you think you can almost touch them. I’ve seen huge clouds flat at the base and fluffy at the top, like a child would draw them, coming low but moving incredibly fast. Which made me laugh. They looked like they were in rush hour traffic on the motorway.

I heard common gulls screeching their good mornings to each other and probably arranging where to meet for breakfast. When I closed my eyes, I (almost) felt like I was at the sea, although it’s more than 50 kilometres to the North Sea and around 80 kilometres to the Baltic Sea. But in recent years gulls have come time and again on extended visits to our town. Not sure what’s in for them, but there must be some attraction.

On the same day, I stood in awe and watched a stork using the favourable thermals and circling over the meadows without end. Elegant and free, it was a beautiful sight!

On my way back, I spotted the stork’s nest in the distance, high up on a pole, with the stork’s partner at home. I don’t know if they had eggs yet, but I was happy to see that the storks were already back on the last day of March.

Flora still needed a bit of time and more warmth, it still looked a little bleak, trees and bushes were still bare, only the grass was already a lush green in the first half of April.

But if you looked for details, there was beauty to find everywhere.

Like the carpet of wood anemones that surprised me in the forest. So beautiful! I also found joy in listening to two great spotted woodpeckers holding a midday drumming session that echoed through the forest and beyond, and in watching a roe through the trees. The wind direction was to our favour, so it didn’t spot us for several minutes. Quite an encounter, beautiful!

The funniest sighting I had on a walk this month was again on the side of the small road out of town. It is lined with several trees, and on one tree trunk I saw a rusty-red flash running up und down and round and round, never sitting still. A squirrel.

I paused under the tree to watch it for a while and realised it wasn’t alone and it wasn’t doing its morning exercises, but was being chased by what appeared to be a very angry starling - around the tree trunk, onto branches, onto smaller branches and back up, up and down, to and fro. The bird was defending its nest (which I couldn’t see, but it had to be there somewhere). So one to zero for the starlings this morning. The rusty-red flash would have better been off looking for another tree and another opportunity for breakfast.

Bee hotel

For my birthday last year I got a surprise present - a bee hotel. As it was off-season, no bee checked in of course, but I was curious what would happen this year. Would they find it? Would they like it? Who would come?

11th April
First interested bees, inconspicuous looking, rather brownish, slender. Also a wasp is checking it out. Is this okay?

12th April
More interested bees. A different species. None holds still long enough to be identified with the help of an app. (I’m currently using ObsIdentify for insects. Do you have another or better recomendation?)

It’s gotten quite warm now, 20 °C.

Ha, these are red mason bees. I haven't been able to identify any others yet, but I'm working on that. Once I know what they are, I can better select the plants I should plant nearby for them.

14th April
Yes! The first room is taken! (Or to quote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “Now with guests.”)

15th April
It’s so very busy! Always six or seven checking out the rooms at the same time, shoving each other away. My husband and I are both absolutely fascinated by the traffic, the bee-syness and the varieties of bees that come looking for the perfect room.

I remove the spider webs from the bee hotel every morning. Nice try, spiders, but not on my watch.

17th April
The second room is taken. Funnily enough, on the same floor and just across the corridor, so to speak. They like it symmetrically.

22nd April
The day before there were still only two rooms occupied, now there are seven!

My husband is talking about installing a very small camera at the bee hotel so we can watch any time what’s going on (without being in the way, litererally. Today a bee landed in my hair. She wasn’t easily pursuaded to let go.). I’m not sure, if my husband is joking about the camera or not. Let’s wait and see.

23rd April
Thirteen flats rented out.

26th April
31 rooms are taken. It’s quite a popular building, apparently.

By the way, do you know the wonderful book Dancing with Bees: A Journey Back to Nature by Brigit Strawbridge Howard? It’s an engaging, richly descriptive nature memoir, passionate, joyful and just beautiful! Highly recommended!

Waiting for rain

13th April

Drought, drought, drought, it's not raining at all. It hasn't rained for weeks, not a single drop. The top 25 centimetre of soil is bone dry. February and March were already far too dry in Schleswig-Holstein. There’s a call to save water. I haven't planted any pots on the patio yet, for that very reason. The daffodils are hanging dangerously over. No rain, too much wind. Tulips don’t blossom. The flower beds look sad. I am so glad that the pearl hyacinths remain undaunted.

I'm planning to install a rainwater tank this year to collect the rainwater from the roof of our garden shed.

15th April

Today I couldn't stand it any longer and watered two and a half flower beds. I replanted a perennial that has been clashing for years with another one that grows much taller. Every year I miss the right time. While I was filling the new planting hole with water from my watering can so that the perennial would grow well and I went away to fetch the plant, a bee discovered the puddle and didn't fly away for a while. I gave it time and finally thought about putting up a shallower bowl with stones and shards of clay in it for the insects. I've only ever thought about the birds and refilled the bird bath. Now the insects have their own water bowl.

A morning in the garden

16th April

Sitting in the open patio door, just looking at the garden and the sky. The air is unnaturally warm and humid, it feels muggy. We're expecting 21 degrees today (and only half that tomorrow).

The magpie chases a pigeon away from the maple. The magpies no longer tolerate anyone near their nest high up in the crown. The tree still has no leaves, only the first signs of green, which gives us a good view of the nest.

A bumblebee is systematically visiting the delicate purple deadnettle flowers, which I like to leave in the garden. They are not a weed for me, they are really pretty and the insects love them - as well as the numerous dandelions on what used to be lawn. I can identify the bumblebee as a field bumblebee and am pleased to have a new species that I can recognize and name. I have also seen them in previous years.

Later, as I tidy up the garden a little - the long, hard, narrow reed leaves, sharp-edged and brown like wood, have become entangled everywhere in the long hedge -, I find the little violets on the west side of the house, in every crack of the flagstone path and behind the pillar of the garden gate.

On the north side, I cut off the old brown fern leaves and discover new ones, still curled up. I like this fuzzy look!

Birds and insects are flying around the garden at all altitudes. It’s a busy day for them, and I find myself ducking and pulling my head in to avoid collision several times.

The rain came over night

17th April

The rain came over night. My husband and I stood at the wide open windows in the middle of the night and watched, listened to and smelled the pouring rain. I closed my eyes and just smiled. It rained for over an hour, sometimes quite heavily. Such a beautiful sound and what a relief!

As I went back to bed, I heard a distant rumble that soon turned into a full-blown orchestra performance. The grande finale of a spring rain festival concluded with a bang of lightning and thunder.

The temperature dropped by 10 degrees. We went from summer to early spring again. It was overcast the entire day.

Four days of rain and showers followed. What a delight!

I saw the first young blackbird on our patio today. It cheeped loudly and demandingly for food, sitting under the roof overhang. When it noticed me, it hopped into the bushes at the edge of the patio. That's better. Not because of me, but a bit more shelter is certainly a good idea. Learn, little bird, learn fast!

Sitting in the garden doing nothing

21st April

Sitting on the bench on the patio, doing nothing. Watching and listening to the bees, bumblebees and birds. Letting the shadows of the trees and the clouds pass by.

The bee hotel is a hive of activity. We definitely need one for other insects next. I've seen very small flies for which all the holes were far too big.

What's that green bird over there on the lawn? Bird app, binoculars, still not sure.

And that creaking-chirping-splashing noise from the hedge? Starlings, says my app. By the way, what kind of hedge do we actually have? Privet? Ah, yes.

A blackbird sings loudly from the top of the maple tree. The magpies are out.

Blue tits and great tits dart through the garden.

Sparrows are screeching, and the starlings are having a coffee party, by the sound of it.

We hear a hooded crow and a stock dove, rather unusual. Is the app right? We can't see either bird. Jackdaws and wood pigeons are more common here.

A tit is having a quick bath. Isn’t it cute?

I could sit here all day at and watch.

Deep relaxation. I can forget everything, it feels so good and calming.

I’m at peace here.

Nature books I’ve read in April

Not a month goes by without me reading a nature book (or most likely, more than one).

Maybe you’ve seen my Book Special: Night & Nature last week? I’ve read five wonderful, interesting and diverse books on the beauty of the night and the importance of darkness.

I’ve also just finished Secret Life of the City: How Nature Thrives in the Urban Wild by Norwegian biologist Hanna Bjørgaas. After realising that she knew more about lichen in Antarctica as in her own backyard in Oslo, she embarked on a year-long journey into urban nature to explore the species that live in urban spaces and that she had so often overlooked or disliked.

I’ve enjoyed this book because, apart from being well-written, it reminded me of the journey I’ve been on for a while now - noticing nature more, also in a town, learning to listen, to observe - and learning about so many interesting and wonderful things, creatures, beings, complex interrelatons. It’s so very fascinating! I experience my everyday world once again in a completely new way, from a different perspective. So, I’ve liked that this book is about blackbirds, ants, crows, seagulls and compost (to name a few), it is very close to my world. At the same time, I was pleased that I already knew many things she wrote about. It's no longer all new and unknown. Yay!

Thank you so much for reading and following me on my journey!

What have you enjoyed this month in nature? I’d love to hear about it!

Happy Quiet Life

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