A perfect day of garden sampling

Garden sampling normally begins with consulting weather forecast websites the day before. If all the weather forecast websites agree on dry weather the next day the garden sampling organisation can start. This involves phoning, texting and emailing the 10 garden owners in the region we want to sample and there is always a bit of uncertainty involved. Will the garden owners be at home or will they leave their garden gate unlocked? Are they maybe on holiday which means we have to use a reserve garden (if we have one)? 

The day of garden sampling begins with an anxious look at the sky and the weather forecast websites (again). But the blue sky looks promising and the day can begin. 

We see really nice gardens with lots of flowers and bees buzzing around ...

And gardens which you cannot really call gardens (rather like a swimming pool without water) ...

Don`t forget to take a photo of the transect ... 

I feel like someone is watching me ...

Wild boar spotted!

A well earned break with some coffee and stretching ...

A fluffy dog in need of cuddling ...

We don`t know if this cat enjoyed the attention ...

A rain shower, and the weather people did say it will stay dry ...

Last garden sampled and pollinators bagged, yippee! 

All garden gates unlocked as promised or garden owners at home to let us in the garden, only one rain shower and lots of pollinators ... a perfect day of garden sampling!*

*In reality we encounter locked garden gates, garden owners who have forgotten we are coming, garden owners who have moved out and someone else owns the garden now, rain when we were promised a dry day and days with hardly any pollinators around. But nevertheless we still manage to sample the gardens, just not always in the perfect way ;-).