It seems like the Summer has finally arrived, and with it the wildlife at Michelham Priory has blossomed.  This week a family of hedgehogs has been coming and going in the kitchen garden, with this small baby taking an afternoon nap in the sunshine!  He was soon rescued by the gardener who carefully put him back in a more shady spot near his siblings!

We also recently had a Dragonfly survey conducted by John Luck, author of ‘Dragonflies of Sussex’ who was on the look out for the rare Scarce Chaser and Brilliant Emerald which had been spotted locally.  Alas, he didn’t find any at Michelham on this occasion, but did find ten different species including the Small Red-eyed Damselfly, a fairly recent resident in the UK.  It may be viewed from the main footbridge over the moat.

The sun has also bought the visitors out from under their umbrellas, and we had glorious weather for our archaeology day on 25 July.  The children really enjoyed getting hands-on with digging, metal detecting and finds processing and it was a fantasic turn out for our first event of the summer holidays.  The next one is our Teddy Bears’ picnic on 15th August, so do please bring your children and teddy bears and see what wildlife you can spot!