Come September the summer should be coming to an end. However, as I write it is another heat wave.
The wildlife is suffering in the drought. Trees are dying, losing leaves under great stress so that branches become brittle and are likely to crack and fall. The fields and verges are yellow, with many flowers over and gone to seed.
Most of my garden looks dead and only some areas surviving as we have had to limit the water use. The dryness has sparked off wild fires in the UK and Europe that have devasted moorlands and forests in their wake and animal, plant and human lives have been lost. I was told in France, as deer leapt out of the burning forests, the firemen helped by dampening them down with sprays of water to cool them.
There is food for the seed eating birds but the herbivores are starving and deer are being found dead of possible starvation and dehydration. My apples are falling so I am leaving them on the ground for the birds and others. Many of us are leaving water down for all. It must be clean and bowls cleaned out weekly. Our pond was low but our reclaim tank underground had water in, so we were able to top up, leaving happy water boatmen and other critters. If you top up with tap water it must stand for a few days to reduce the chemicals in it before replenishing the pond.
Our wildlife watchers have been busy this summer and on the Lugg a kingfisher has been spied fishing. A wonderful splash of blue. Even if the Lugg is low, the fish are surviving for the moment.
In July volunteers with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust were counting butterflies and many beauties have been seen in great numbers. At the moment of writing, I have spotted many in the garden. In France, I saw amazing examples of butterflies, many the same, such as common blues and whites. I did have the pleasure of spotting a swallowtail, a large butterfly that has yellow and black chequered wings with pointed ends, hence its name, with the rear of the wings having a row of blue dots and at the central edges reddish/ orange spots. They are native to the UK but not here unfortunately, as they are mostly on the east side in the Fenlands. The caterpillars gorge on milk parsley that is prolific there. However, there are butterflies and moths that have appeared as rare sightings in Herefordshire. Our local watchers have seen many hummingbird hawk-moths that are plentiful in Europe but not usually so common around here. They are fascinating to watch as they move at great speed from flower to flower with their great probuscis searching for nectar.
We will now approach autumn and hopefully lots of moderate rain to replenish the ground and water reserves as heavy rain runs straight off hardened ground and causes flash floods.