Climate breakdown stared us in the face this month; the full gamut of weather conditions now regularly affecting our lives with soaring temperatures one week followed by torrential rain and flooding. In the UK our cities reached 30 degrees and more – too hot for us. The real crisis is being felt much more acutely across the globe with horrific forest fires raging through Canada, America and Europe, annihilating thousands of miles of land and communities. And still our governments continue to support fossil fuel industries. The heatwave in the UK led to vast numbers of people seeking outdoor swimming spaces in nature to take refuge from the heat but sadly resulted in a tripling of deaths from drowning. In addition to this, farmers were seeing large swathes of their fields being used by visitors as the footpaths became widened to abide by social distancing rules but also due to a wish to avoid muddy footpaths because of inadequate footwear. Wild places were being trashed. Covid has created a desperate need for access to green spaces and it is right that everyone should have the opportunity to share in our wilderness but there seems to be precious little education as to how travel harmoniously through rural environments. It has been a crazy time.
And what of the field that I look after? The creeping thistles continue to dominate in the top part of the field. In the early morning sun, the aroma of honey arises as you walk among them – absolutely delicious. The insects and bugs continue to jump out of the grasses and wildflowers. Bush crickets singing away, alongside the bumble bees and honey bees. As far as I am aware, this season has not given us any more wildflower species than we had last year but the numbers of each flower have spread, and their presence has become more obvious. Self-heal only appeared in ones and twos last year but now they are scattered in clumps at the sides of the raspberry cage. Knapweed, again, only appeared in one tiny part of the field, has now come up in several areas. I’m partial to knapweed, I like its shape and colour and it’s good to see it spreading but more importantly it produces copious amounts of nectar and according to a survey done by Bristol University it is one of the most important British flowers for pollinating insects. Professor Dave Goulson describes it as ‘Lucozade for bees’ and as a man who studies the ecology of bees and wrote about them in ‘A Sting in the Tale’, he should know.
On two rare occasions I caught sight of a dragon fly in the garden. I learnt that swallows eat them and without meaning to go all Sherlock Holmes on you – that’s probably the reason we don’t see many of them. They will also eat flies and aphids and so I forgive them for munching on dragonflies. The swallow population has grown as the first broods get out and practice their flying skills. It’s a good sight to see the telegraph wires filling up with the birds and watching them dive bombing around the field. There are also several families of blue tits who have introduced their young to the bird feeders. They gather in large groups, adults and young together, all swinging from the vessel and keeping us entertained in the early evening. During the day the larger visitors pay a call; collared doves and jays make awkward attempts to sup from the bird feeders, but the greediest and most successful are the woodpeckers. They look enormous and make a lot of mess which is great for the rat family on the ground. Share the love, that’s what I say.
The full moon in July has a few names; Buck Moon, Hay Moon and ‘Wort Moon’ to name a few. The Buck Moon comes from the Native American culture, with reference to the new antlers that appear on a deer buck’s head at this time of year. Not around here – the last sighting of a deer was over 5 years ago. The name ‘Wort Moon’ is the Anglo-Saxon name for this month’s moon – ‘wyrt’ being the old word for plants or herbs used in medicinal remedies. This accounts for many of the names of our wildflowers; lungwort, mugwort, St John’s wort, fleawort – you get the picture. All of the ‘worts’ formed part of the herbalists’ medicine cabinet. ‘When the sun was in Leo, the worts were gathered to be dried and stored’, (The Shepherd’s Calendar published in 16th century). There are worts a plenty out in the field here, in particular Tansy ragwort but there is a reason why this plant is also referred to as ‘Stinking Willie’ or ‘Mare’s Fart’, which is my excuse for not gathering and drying them this month. I’ll stick to picking the first of the blackberries.
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