If I could bring William Shakespeare back for an hour I should ask him to describe the summer days of June 2012.

The poet is said to have written this poem for a lovely lady called Mary Fitton (1578-1647) and who lived at Gawsworth Old Hall in Cheshire: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Gawsworth Hall is a super place with a half-timbered hall, a wonderful old church overlooked by an idyllic pond full of wildlife.

The village is reached from Junction 18 of the M6 and through Congleton on the A536 to Gawsworth.

It is within easy reach of East lancashire and the house is open to the public. There is a cafe, lovely pubs and a toilet.

As readers of this column know, I love the balance between history and natural history, but here there is a touch of Shakespeare In Love. But, come on ‘Willie’, give us a bit o’ sunshine.

Wagtail love turbulent waters

This seven-inch bouncing acrobat is one of the few species to thrive in the most turbulent of the waters.

We are lucky that the grey wagtail is a common species in our area and to call it a wagtail is an understatement.

Even in winter, stretches of fast-moving fresh water are less likely to freeze than the slower stretches of water.

The grey wagtail is able to poke about under stones in search of insect larvae such as mayfly and stonefly. The bird uses its tail in order to balance among the stones.

The species is easily recognised by the bright yellow on its breast and under the tail, while the back is slate grey. Why then do we call it the grey wagtail? This is because there is a yellow wagtail which is even more yellow.

The grey wagtail is common and a resident species, while the yellow wagtail is a summer visitor and is now quite rare.

It loves meadows as a breeding area and this habitat has been built on over the years.

Wonders of long-tailed tit

The more that I study nature the more amazing I find it.

I listened to a debate on the radio last week where a team of experts were discussing who were the best architects. Was it the Greeks, the Romans, the French or those in Tudor England? They were all wrong — it was the long tailed tit.

When I was a lad, we used to call the birds bottle-tits because of the shape of the nest.

It is like a small rugby ball made of moss literally stitched together with spiders webs.

They leave a hole at the top as an entrance and in it the female can lay as many as 12 eggs.

At first the nest is quite small, but as the chicks start to grow it expands and the spider-web stitches are flexible – you do not need to poke into the nest to see what is happening because when the young are active you can see the flexible nest vibrating.

I love to see long-tails feeding on my bird table in the autumn, but in sunmmer they are wonderful and in my view they are the best architects in the world. There’s nowt new under the sun.