The elderflower season features highly as a family event now in our calendar. The children watch eagerly during the summer months as we drive around the Wolds for the first signs of the swathes of delicate white flowers on the beautifully shaped elderflower bushes in the hedges.

Impatience for the elderflowers to appear this year (they have been asking when they would be ready since March) goes to show that these are events that childhood memories are made of.

Grandad’s elderflower picking weekend is one that the children adore. We go to pick as many elderflowers as we can from our hedges in the fields and the fact that Grandad’s old red tractor features in the event makes it even more fun.

Baskets passed down through the generations are fully deployed, and then fully filled, and it is not just the children that enjoy the heady scent of elderflowers as we take them back to the farmhouse kitchen where Grandad works his magic to make the cordial, sometimes with, sometimes without, some little helpers. If you fancy having a go yourself, here’s the recipe for Rob’s Homemade Elderflower Cordial.

This year, our trip’s special highlight was the discovery on one of the field tracks of a family of lapwings. The sight of a lapwing fighting off a buzzard was our first alert to the fact that something was afoot, and as we approached, 4 tiny bundles of fluffy newly-hatched feathers were visible, squatting in the soil and grass, stock still, in their “danger” pose.

With mummy lapwing escorting us, we didn’t hang around for long but we did get the chance to take a few photos with a telephoto lens. A rare treat to see chicks so young – not more than a couple of days old – and we only hope that after we’d gone the buzzard didn’t return.

Heaps of skylarks were flying overhead and although it is hard to get a quiet moment when 4 small children are involved, after some coaxing, the children did stop chattering for long enough for us all to be mesmerized (for a few precious moments) by the birdsong.

A veritable birdlife safari on this years’ elderflower event…

Zoe