It's been a month since I last wrote. In that time the wagtails and swallows have fledged, and it would seem that Summer has been and gone. As I look at the hedges this week the sloes and hazel nuts are filling out and it feels like we are rocketing towards Autumn.We still have most of our hay to cut, the only good thing to be said for that is that the orchids are beginning to ripen their seed and Pete may not have to weave between the marker canes when he mows the fields. The helleborine on the left is at the bottom of a hazel hedge so is safe, in theory. This year wasps are paying great attention to the plant so I looked up to see what were the usual pollinators. Yep, wasps! Helleborines are not uncommon around here yet I have never seen wasps on them before. Although I didn't notice at the time, the photo, of which this is a detail, also shows a shield bug on a flower.
My latest find here in the flower line is tufted vetch. Our top field has a large patch in the field and several clumps in the hedges. As the clumps are well established I can't work out how I've missed them in previous years. Ragged Robin and Devils Bit Scabious have also popped up in some previously unrecorded spots. Also, harping back to my rant about old flora and diversity there are several plants of white flowered Spear Thistle.
Re thistles: One field belonging to our neighbour is covered in creeping thistle. A couple of weeks ago I could see a large patch on one side of the field looked odd, so went to investigate. Closer inspection found a seething mass of Painted Lady caterpillars on the march. They had totally stripped the foliage from the thistles and the stems and surrounding grass were black with them. Sadly, since then we've had nothing but rain so I suspect my dreams of myriads of newly painted ladies won't come true. It is amazing, despite all this horrible weather, the minute the sun shines butterflies are on the wing, though where they find dry flowers to drink from I don't know. What is interesting, because this field is so thistled one can see the extent of a plant by the colour variations in the flowers. One huge patch appears to only be two plants.
I have been keeping tabs on a long eared bat that has been roosting in the granary. 2 days ago I found its mummified body on the floor below its roost. Comparitively, its ears must be bigger than those of an elephant. Obviously, it could have died for any number of reasons but its death has coincided with days of torrential storms and I can't help thinking that's probably the reason. There is also a wasps' nest in the granary and it has grown steadily and been kept so even. I never fail to marvel at their engineering, but equally I wonder why they build where we are in conflict with them.
The kitchen garden has finally begun to repay earlier efforts and I have started to sell my first veg, though I am rapidly beginning to wonder just how we will ever really make it profitable when we live surrounded by so much wildlife. My latest tribulations are something eating unripe tomatoes in the polytunnel - mice I think - and yesterday I found bunches of green blueberries lying beneath the plants - blackbirds? I believe that gardening keeps you humble because nature always gets the upper hand but here it does drive one to bad language!
