Rabbit, brown rabbit, brown rabbit

There's a traditional saying of 'rabbit, white rabbit, white rabbit' to greet the new month. But this new month of May is being greeted by the handsome and delightfully disapproving Mr Mick of Zen of Bun. Here he is in the House Rabbit Connection calendar which he sent me at the beginning of the year.

Mr Mick is becoming a bit of an international superstar, what with all his appearances on calendars and even candles. So we're honoured to have him gracing our kitchen wall for the next month.

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May is a time of birdsong of course. Last night, April went out with a wonderful evening chorus from the birds at Figgate Park, where I took my birdwatching class. Today, I was in Musselburgh, delighted by the hundred or so house martins swooping above the river, the skylarks and meadow pipits singing above the fields by the John Muir Walkway, the willow warblers singing in the willow treesby the boating pond and the willow warblers and skylarks that I could hear while sitting in the bird hide.

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May is a time also of bees buzzing in the flowers, or it should be. Bee numbers are declining drastically, so it was good news that the European Union recently banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which seem to be one of the several factors causing the decrease in bee numbers. Meanwhile, the online poetry journal Ink, Sweat and Tears has started a season of bee poetry and I'm delighted that my poem Fistful of Bees is featured.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.