by Miki Marks // Main Photo: A car dumped at Notcutts © Mark Matthews
There are plenty of butterflies on the wing towards the end of the month: peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell and the most distinctive comma. These are fresh new adults, hatched from eggs laid in spring. They are feeding on nectar rich plants like buddleia, oregano, verbena bonariensis and Shasta daisies. The verbena, as its name shows, was originally from the area round Buenos Aires, Argentina – but the butterflies have sensibly adapted, as they have to non-native buddleia. After a good feed, they will mate and lay eggs for a second brood, whose caterpillars can be found on nettles between now and September. These second-brood adults will then hibernate. With climate change and warmer winters it is noticeable that more butterflies are overwintering. The red admiral has what is considered a long lifespan; the summer generation live for 4-6 months but the overwintering ones can live to up to 10 months tucked away in sheds or tree hollows. You might have noticed that last month there were fewer butterflies – this is called the ‘June Gap’ by lepidopterists – when the first butterflies of the year are on the wane and their offspring are yet to take flight. Single brooded species like meadow brown and gatekeeper are still waiting to emerge.
Weather prediction has always been important and interesting. Here is a well-known piece of folklore:
St Swithin’s day, if thou dost rain–
for forty days it will remain
St Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair –
for forty days will rain na mair.
Wikipedia briskly tells us that no one believes this anymore and it does seem far-fetched that one day’s weather can foretell the next forty days. But there might be some truth behind this saying, says naturalist Richard Burton. Over high summer our weather tends to lock into a pattern so whatever it is by the 15th July it is likely to continue right up until late August. Or at least, that was the case before our increasingly unpredictable weather systems. It will be interesting to see what happens this year.
Who was St Swithin? A bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. He was made a saint and patron of Winchester Cathedral and when his remains were transferred from the grounds to a shrine inside the building on the 15th of July 971 there was a huge storm. Perhaps that gave rise to the legend.
This time of the year, in fact, some of the heaviest hailstorms occur in the British Isles. This is because the hot land surface encourages the formation of such tall cumulonimbus clouds that the water droplets at the top freeze. The resulting hailstones are bigger and heavier than winter ones. The UK’s largest hailstone on record fell in summer 1958 in Horsham and was the size of a tennis ball
Heavy rain does not help insects and neither does a cold spell in the summer. Only on warm days I see dragonflies over my small pond. I love watching their amazing flying antics. On sunny days there is usually a male or two circling the water, hovering and sliding, and showing off. The front and rear pairs of wings work independently – and if your hearing is better than mine, the flap of their wings out of synchrony is audible. This arrangement gives the dragonfly immense manoeuvrability; it can hover, slip sideways, fly backwards or suddenly speed forwards faster than the eye can follow. For this it needs the wings to beat together for maximum power.
Cold weather grounds dragonflies because their wing muscles don’t work properly unless they are warm. Large dragonflies need a temperature of 30-40 degrees – the same range of body temperatures as most warm blooded animals. Dragonflies warm up by basking in the sun, however, on a baking hot day they can overheat – so they flap less and glide more to generate less heat. Their Plan B is to use their long abdomen as a radiator to cool their blood. Always good to have a Plan B.
Settled dry weather is good for Wimbledon but very challenging for some of our wildlife. It can force badgers to become vegetarians. Earthworms make up over half the diet of these interesting animals, but this food source virtually disappears in very dry weather as the earthworms burrow deep. Badgers will also eat small mammals – even shrews which they find fairly unpalatable. Birds, and their eggs, beetles, caterpillars and grubs make up the rest of the menu. When these are scarce badgers, as a last resort, have a Plan B: they eat vegetation.
Beryl Harvey Fields – off Knowle Lane, in Cranleigh, was gifted to Cranleigh, and is managed by the Parish Council. Volunteer work has been suspended while we await the conclusions of an ecological report the PC commissioned. I am particularly interested to know how the established badger sett there is doing. Although badgers, like foxes, are not universally loved and have been the target of much cruelty, I find Mr Brock a magical creature. I hope to share with you the conclusions of this eco report soon.
