A spring cranefly - Dicranomyia chorea

Right on cue for the first day of spring I discovered a freshly emerged, male short-palped cranefly on the moss on the top of Butterfly Rock. The pupal exuvia can be seen in one of the pictures above protruding from the moss just to the left of the wing tips.

After it had hardened its exoskeleton it started to move around and eventually settled on a grass blade beside the rock.

This sandstone rock has now been in situ for just under two years. It quickly developed a carpet of moss and lichen on its bare top and, earlier this year, this was thick enough to support some small vascular plants. Now an insect has completed its development in the moss - only two years from bare stone to invertebrate life.

The rock has also developed a cordon of plants around its perimeter that do not grow elsewhere in Emthree. I strongly suspect they arise from seeds brought in by birds who must also deliver a fair quantity of fertiliser that washes off with the seeds.

Sudden flood

The other day I went to look at Emthree and found water running everywhere and all the holes and hollows full. It was clear and sunny and, although there had been some rain earlier, I thought it had not been enough to cause such flooding unless it was a very focussed cloudburst.

However, I quickly discovered that a water main had burst in a shed in the next door garden. The problem was soon fixed and the water drained rapidly away. One small bonus was that I was able to enjoy a tree reflection in a puddle in Troy Track, something that has not happened before as it is either raining on the water surface or dry.

Common crystalwort (Riccia sorocarpa)

A star turn today was the 'appearance' of a distinctive plant on bare ground at the north eastern end of Troy Track. Not only is this a new record for the project, it is also the first hepatic - that's the smart name for liverwort. Double hooray!

In the literature common crystalwort is indeed said to be common, but I have somehow managed to live my whole life without ever consciously seeing an example. It is an annual species and will, I think, not grow very much larger.

As is so often the case, I spotted this (it is about 1 cm in diameter) using my close focus binoculars and it must have been where it is for some time without my having noticed it.

Soft-rush (Juncus effusus) discovered

At the north western end of Troy Track I spotted some rigid green leaves overtopping the grass. These turned out to be a plant of soft-rush (Juncus effusus) that must have been growing, undetected, for at least six months.

It reinforces my observation that it is impossible to ‘see’ everything, even in a small area, on one or several occasions. Seeing things like this rush for the first time seems to occur when, for some reason, conditions in the brain are right.

Pointed spear-moss (Calliergonella cuspidata)

These moss shoots are the first species I have added to the overall tally for the project in 2007. I spotted them through close-focus binoculars on the more or less bare ground of Great Plantain Desert.

I have come across pointed spear-moss quite often in the neighbourhood, but it seems normally to prefer rather wetter places than the Emthree project. However, it now joins list of plants recorded that are said to prefer moister soils: square-stalked St. John's-wort, gipsywort, marsh thistle, greater bird's-foot trefoil. All of these grow well in quite dry, or even very dry, places in Emthree and/or The Waste. Maybe they can grow almost anywhere and simply have a better ability than some to cope with wetter soils and are normally out-competed on drier ones.

The pointed leading shoot is very distinctive and it is often quite easy to pick out the moss while walking along.

Rosette life v.2

After some recent frosts it has rained heavily enough to fill the 'pond' at the western end of Troy Track.

It is quite rare for water to stay about for so long on our free draining soil, but the ground is waterlogged now and the hosepipe ban has been recently lifted. Compare the shot above with the one taken on 2 February.

Rosette life

The rosettes above are all of wintergreen plants that have developed since late summer on the south facing bank of the still empty pondlet I have dug at the end of Troy Track.

On the left there are two smooth hawksbeards (Crepis capillaris), then - I think - a smooth sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus) with a marsh thistle (Cirsium palustre) on the right.

The leaves clearly have a tendency to push themselves flat against the substrate, presumably to get the maximum sunlight, and I vaguely wondered why the lower leaves do not stand out at right angles from the vertical; did not, as it were try to make a right angle with gravity. I must try to see what happens on a north slope.

A New Year grass (Poa annua)

The 1 January 2007 was a mild sunny day and I could feel the warmth on my face as I looked around Emthree.

There were a few vine hoppers (Empoasca vitis) and bluebottles, but I did not think there would be any flowers about. However, I did find a brave spike of annual meadow grass, Poa annua, growing on Troy Track. This plant often flowers in mild weather in winter, apparently because its performance is unaffected by day length.

Maybe a Common Bonnet at the year's end

On my last visit to Emthree in 2006 I spotted a Mycena toadstool growing in the north west corner of the Metre Square. It looks like a common bonnet (Mycena galericulata), a new record for the square.

As a start to 2007, I like this quote from R. Bruce Hull (2006) in Infinite Nature: "it will become increasingly obvious that deciding which natures should exist requires imposing human values for which natures we want to exist.” Conservation eventually becomes a matter of design as my experience with this project shows.

Earwig fungus

I saw what looked like a woolly caterpillar under a leaf of hogweed in Mice & Red today, but it turned out to be a dead earwig firmly stuck to the leaf blade by a fungus that had burst out of its body.

I have often seen fungus-infected hoverflies glued to grass blades, but this is the first time I have come across an earwig in this condition.

I have made some enquiries and hopefully will be able to identify it to species level in due course.

November cat's-ear

The cold weather has arrived with a near frost last night and a proper one very likely tonight. I took my first of the month pictures of Emthree and noticed that a cat's-ear, Hypochaeris radicata, has struggled into flower, one of the rather few blooms we have had from this plant this year.

Most of the cat's-ears have been eaten by night visitors, but this has survived. If it sets seed it will be a triumph of hope over reality and I believe this species is on its way to extinction in the Green Sanctuary.

A late centaury

I noticed a tiny pink anomaly in the grass just in front of White Log and discovered the smallest common centaury, Centaurium erythraea, with two or three buds. Despite some warm sunshine, these remained doggedly shut and I doubt that seed will be produced.

Last year there were several examples of this species on Thistle Moor and in The Waste and they produced copious quantities of seed. A large number have germinated on the bare soil of Great Plantain Desert, but they will not flower until next year.

This October straggler must, I think, have germinated in 2005 from seed that may have been dormant for some time as there had been no flowering plants in 2003 or 2004. Welcome stranger.

Butterfly Rock

I studied Butterfly Rock today. The top, bare when I put it in The Waste in March 2005, is now a complex tapestry of several moss and lichen species scattered with bits of berry, snail shell and bird droppings like the top of a decorated cake. It just does this, unbidden by me, despite being in full sun in no shady or moisty place. It is, of course, a fine bird perch and their detritus has no doubt helped produce a nutrient layer.

The colours on this rock at this autumn season are a delight: dark and pale green, greenish yellow, black, brown and greenish grey.

In addition to the grasses, the vegetation around the rock (all visible in the picture) includes white clover, smooth hawksbeard, selfheal, herb robert, knapweed, ragwort, marsh thistle, greater plantain, sorrel and narrow-leaved vetch

The ragwort dies

The large plant of ragwort, Senecio jacobaea, finished flowering and lost all its leaves so on 1 October I cut it back to the level of the stake of beech driftwood I call 'The Gnomon'. I have watched it through many transformations: as a small seedling, as a great cabbage of a rosette this spring. Then as the five stalks climbed upwards to well over a metre tall and attracted a wide range of insects.

Despite the summer size and vigour of this ragwort, the other plants round about, as the picture shows, seem to have grown without undue check. It is a mystery to me quite where the nutrient comes from.

Another puzzle is why large, robust plants like this die after a season while other, often much smaller species may persist for many years. Just behind The Gnomon there is a baby birch, now two years old. Above it some hypericum that struggled while the ragwort grew, but is now claiming its placed in the sun. Somehow the ragwort seems programmed to die young while the birch,in fifty to seventy years time may die due to windthrow or fungal attack, but not because it is programmed to die after a given period.

The annuals and biennials do, maybe, evolve more rapidly, but it will be many years before the birches and other young trees can reproduce. Over long periods of time have the annuals survived better in some contexts and the perennials better in others? If they have it is difficult to explain why the two now grow so happily together, though the short-lived do make good 'nurse crops' for the longer lived.

Glow-worms and sawflies

Today I found a glow-worm larva (top picture) under Gingerbread Refuge in Emthree. It was not fully grown, but nearly so and probably in its second autumn. It will remain much the same size until next spring when it will feed up quite rapidly on snails.

Four days ago in Friston Forest our group of recorders found several larvae of the sawfly Tenthredo thompsoni (lower picture) with a pattern curiously similar to that of the young glow-worm. There are several other not very closely related sawflies that have a similar pattern of two lines of orange spots on a dark ground.

I wonder what this signifies. It is not, to my eyes, a characteristic warning pattern saying "don't eat me", nor does it seem to be a camouflage that causes the creature to merge into its background (unless the spots are supposed to look like glints of sunshine on a dark ground).

Suggestions will be welcome.

The identity of this sawfly larva, inter alia, is the subject of much dispute among members of the sawfly discussion group. In may be a small Abia sericea, or a Tenthredo johnsoni. Anyone who thinks they know is welcome to comment.

Platycis minuta - a beetle revealed

In the last 24 hours Emthree suffered one of its rather rare catastrophic events. White Log, the decaying central divider of birch, was attacked by maybe a badger or woodpecker and shredded bits of wood were scattered about all over the place.

However, I noticed a small red and black beetle, Platycis minuta, liberally dusted with fragments of shredded wood, resting in an exposed crevice. This species, which I have found in our garden once or twice before has a 'Nationally Scarce' status (Notable/Nb) and is associated with ancient woodland rather than my dry, semi-improved grassland, though there is ancient woodland 50 metres or so away.

In general appearance the beetle is remarkably close to another ancient woodland saproxylic species, the black-headed cardinal beetle, Pyrochroa coccinea, but it is only about half the size and the thorax black instead of red.

Spider-hunting wasp, Anoplius nigerrimus

Every year we get quite large numbers of these black spider-hunting wasps in Emthree. They are the most restless creatures, running across the ground, logs or stones with their antennae in constant motion; exploring holes and crevices, occasionally making short flights.

Spiders are very aware of their presence and I have seen them draw themselves up in a 'ready to run' position if a wasp is about.

On one occasion a wasp and its struggling spider victim fell in my little Onelitre Pond in Emthree, battled away for a bit on the water surface and managed to get back on to dry land still fighting.

It may be that the current scarcity of wolf spiders is due to the activities of the hunting wasps last year. However, they may now find there is a shortage of fresh spider meat which will reduce their population and allow the number of spiders to rise again.

Silver y moth, Autographa gamma

Earlier in the summer in south east England there was an invasion of silver y moths, Autographa gamma, presumably from mainland Europe. On 1 August I found the caterpillar above on the large ragwort plant in Emthree and I reared it indoors to an adult (see also above).

Some of the silk from its cocoon seems to have stuck to its front end, but it was in perfectly good shape and after posing for its picture, was released.

Fomoria septembrella - the tiny moth emerges

Today, appropriately for 1 September, the tiny micromoth Fomoria septembrella, the johnswort pigmy, emerged from a leaf mine that I collected in The Waste on 19 August from the square-stalked St. John’s-wort, Hypericum tetrapterum.

Though only about 2.5 mm long, it was a beautiful, wonderfully wrought creature with brown, silver-marked wings folded over its back and a cap of bright orange scales on its head.

After I had taken some pictures (not easy), I let it go by the still-flowering hypericums in Emthree and it took to the wing like a shard of brown glass.

I suppose there are some advantages to being as small as this. You can spend much of your life inside an edible leaf and are too little to be readily visible, or appetising to a wide range of predators.

Anyway, fare well tiny friend.

New lichen, Lecanora campestris

Standing idly in the rain yesterday, I noticed a sort of grey smear like some distant nebula on the sandstone rock in The Waste. There have been various stains of an indeterminate nature on this rock and others in Emthree, but today I could clearly see the small brown jam tart-like fruiting bodies that revealed Master Smudge's identity as a lichen.

Consulting with books led to the conclusion that it might be Lecanora campestris and this was confirmed by Simon Davey, the Sussex Lichen Recorder. L. campestris is an abundant species in the south and, among other habitats, it likes to grow on nutrient enriched silaceous rocks. In this case the repeated cracking of snails by our garden thrush must have produced a rich patina of snail juice and bird poo that has no doubt fostered the growth of this lichen. At this rate it will be no time at all before we have a layer of soil on the rock.

Phaonia on Hypericum

Having said in an earlier posting that I saw rather few insects on the square-stalked St John's-worts in M3, today I noticed this muscid fly, a Phaonia species (see above) enjoying its afternoon tea on one of the flowers.

There are many members of the genus Phaonia, so I am not going to hazard a guess at the species, though it is one of the common ones.

Square-stalked St John's-wort, Hypericum tetrapterum

This hypericum reaches its best in mid-August and is a distinctive mixture of flower and fruit. The seeds pods turn boot-polish brown as they ripen which adds to the effect. The plants (which are said to prefer marshy places) have increased steadily in the past few years and it seems quite at home both in M3 and in The Waste.

Not many insects visit the flowers, but there are various things that feed on the leaves. One is the larvae of the tiny Johnswort pigmy moth, Fomoria septembrella, that make distinctive mines on some of the leaves. I have brought one leaf indoors to see if I can breed out an adult moth.

Too deep for tears

There is a great summer stillness under the high cloud blanket. It is our 48th wedding anniversary and that distant commemorated day seems such a long time ago.

An autumnal theme is starting to prevail in M3: dry grass, leaves fading from pale buff to umber black, often fretted with holes by July insects or scribbled with their leaf mines.

There are a few weary bees on the flowers gathering the last of the honey and pollen.

I sat thinking about the reasons why some people respond passionately to nature while others are little moved, or indifferent. Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement (1790) argued that ‘enjoyment’ is the result when pleasure arises from sensation, but judging something to be ‘beautiful’ has a third requirement: sensation must give rise to pleasure by engaging our capacities of reflective contemplation.

The ardent naturalist seems often to be moved to a deep and meaningful contemplation by what is perceived as the beauty of wild things.

Maybe Wordsworth had read Kant. His Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood completed in 1804, the year of Kant’s death, ends with the lines:

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Today was hay-cutting day ...

Today (31 July) was hay-cutting day for Mice & Red but I was busy and out a lot and I forgot. No matter, I will go for it on 1 August.

I did make a brief evening visit and simply sat there and enjoyed the relative coolness; enjoyed watching a rosy-flounced tabby, nectaring with evident satisfaction on flowers of ragwort. These attractive little pyralid moths, Endotricha flammealis, have been much in evidence this year.

July we learn has been the hottest month on record in Britain since records began in 1914 with an average day and night temperature of 17.8°C. The main effect this seems to have had in M3 is that some of the July flowers are going over to seed more quickly. This, of course, may be because there has been an almost continuous opportunity in the daytime for insect pollination rather than the heat per se.

I have bought a simple rain gauge and have set it up near M3 to see how much rain we actually do get. On this last day of July we did have a heavy shower at about 8pm and there was more rain overnight: it won’t fill the reservoirs, but it might help some of the plants along.

A dusk visit

I try to visit M3 every day and usually write enough words to fill up a side or two of a standard 5 inch x 3 inch index card. Today I said:

A dusk visit after a day at Woods Mill. Wild silver y moths dash through the still, cricket-haunted air on a grey blur of wings. There are quieter midges and mosquitoes too like dust motes in the gloom.

Blackbirds sound the alarm in the wood and somewhere there are crooning pigeons.

No rain today and the ground looks brown and dry, but high above the quintet of flowers – ragwort, hogweed, rosebay, knapweed, hypericum - plays on like the band on the deck of the Titanic.

Ragwort in the heatwave

In the hottest part of the day the leaves on the ragwort Senecio jacobaea in The Metre all turn upside down, exposing the somewhat silvery underside to the sunshine and presumably thus reducing water loss.

It is remarkable that they do not simply wilt but actually manage to turn through 180 degrees. This indicates there is some mechanism within the leaf stalk that twists one way or another as the temperature rises.

There was a little rain this evening, but it scarcely wet the ground. However, most of the plants do not seem particularly stressed yet.

A conopid fly - Thecophora sp.

Late this afternoon I was giving some detailed scrutiny to the ragwort in M3 when I noticed a small, unusually-shaped fly visiting some of the flowers. I tried to photograph it, but is was too fast and eventually I caught it.

It turned out to be a Thecophora species parasitic on solitary bees.

Again, as with the smaller plants, I often first spot things like this through binoculars having sat quietly for a while. Many entomologists, I suspect, walk through an area, but rarely stop, wait and watch, so they just do not see many of the things that are about.

I originally had this down as Zodion cinereum and I am grateful to Jere for correcting this.

Heather and holly

In cutting back some of the longer vegetation I have discovered two plants in The Waste that I have not previously recorded in this project. One is a holly, Ilex aquifolium, and the other (I think) bell heather, Erica cinerea.

The first of these is growing close to the southern edge of M3 while the other is in the bare soil of Great Plantain Desert. Both were discovered using close focus binoculars and the heather in particular is very tiny and inconspicuous.

Holly seeds have a long and complicated germination pattern. The seed may travel through the gut of a bird in winter and the embryo starts to develop during the following warmer months. It then needs a period of cold stratification before germinating in its second spring. So, at a minimum, the seed of my holly settled into its position in winter 2004/5.

The bell heather is, I think, unlikely to be a natural arrival as our nearest wild heather patches are some way away. We do grow a few plants in the garden, or it may have come in as seed on my boots - who knows. Given the right conditions I think this and ling, Calluna vulgaris, are quite good at spreading themselves provided they can find open,non-calcareous soil.

Two-spotted neb moth, Eulamprotes atrella

As I sat contemplating life, the Universe and all that by M3 this evening, I noticed a small black insect resting in a leaf axil of one of the square-stalked St. John's-wort plants. I managed to get a photo before it flew off and saw it again a few moments later on a figwort leaf.

It was a two-spotted neb moth, Eulamprotes atrella, a tiny micro whose larvae feed on St. John's-worts. I made no attempt to capture the insect and am confident that it can be safely determined from the photo. This is a first for M3 and the only previous Sussex record in the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre's database is from Cow Gap at Beachy Head.

Aspects of ragwort, Senecio jacobaea

As the ragwort plants in M3 come up to flowering, they present a variety of forms from the rich purple stems below to the tightly packed buds above and the intricately cut leaves in between.

The plants will flower for many weeks, until deep into the autumn and, judging by previous years, will attract a wide range of invertebrates.

After flowering they will die and this is one of the best ways of getting rid of ragwort if you don't want it as the seeds normally only germinate in bare, scuffed ground (like overgrazed horse fields).

The red ant Myrmica ruginodis

This insect is one of the most intrigueing in M3 as it moves about en masse from place to place and occasionally disappears altogether. In the warmer months these ants are often busy under Gingerbread Refuge, a piece of wood at the base of the north wall of logs. Once I saw them winding their way in a column up the dead stalk of a marsh thistle plant like pilgrims ascending the outside stairway of the Malwiyya, the spiral minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra.

In winter they go to ground somewhere and emerge during the first warmer days of spring. Recently they abandoned Gingerbread Refuge, but a few days ago they started coming back and today I found them with the brood of larvae (see photo above) which, I suspect, must have been brought up from secret chambers somewhere underground to be in a warmer place so as to complete their development more quickly.

As with the slugs, it is difficult to understand quite what these and the other ants live on. Whatever it is there must be plenty of it, but all I ever see is the stray worker lugging some bit of detritus towards the nest.

These red ants are often accompanied by tiny, white springtails called Cyphoderus albinus that rush around among the workers like an animated pieces of scurf. When the ants go Cyphoderus goes too like a camp follower.

These ants put up with a lot from me as I turn over the various refuges under which they shelter, but they are great survivors and I admire their industry and tenacity and their long season of complex activity.

Smooth Hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris

One of the most characteristic plants of M3, the smooth hawksbeard, is now flowering well and, if it is reasonably mild, it will continue into January. Like many composites (Asteraceae) the flowers of this widespread plant open in the morning and are usually closed by mid-afternoon whatever the weather.

The leaves are very bitter and, while they are sometimes used in salads in mainland Europe, they are eaten by very few animals and there are always many undamaged wintergreen plants. I have seen recipes for a country wine made from the flowers too (like dandelion wine), but I suspect there are far better options for the home wine-maker.

The plant is surprisingly polymorphic, some examples having quite deeply serrated leaves while others are almost smooth in outline. M3 has flowering plants over a metre tall and some less than 10cm. Mostly they are biennial, but some plants appear in spring and flower by late summer.

The flowers at this time of year are usually crowded with the small, black Meligethes beetles shown in the picture, but so far in 2006 they have been rather scarce. I am trying to find out if this fall in number is widespread.

Common figwort beetles

Recently the two plants of common figwort, Scrophularia nodosa,in M3 have started flowering. Not exactly showy things, but with a quiet, velvety brown and green beauty.

This morning I spotted several slug-like caterpillars in the flower head of one of the plants where they had been making a fine mess chewing the blooms to pieces. I think they must be larvae of one of the Ciona weevils,probably C. scrophulariae, but I shall have to wait for some adults to absolutely sure.

By the evening they had all gone, either to pupate, or because they had been eaten by something.

An old bone

Today I found an ancient, or fairly ancient, piece of bone about 6 or 7 metres to the south of M3 on the other side of the path through The Meadow. It looks like the sawn off head of a cow's femur.

I cannot recall ever buying anything like that, so it may have been transported into the garden by a fox or badger or one of the children. Anyway, I have put it on a high point of newly cut Waste in a sunny position between Butterfly Rock and the Lyon Stone. I particularly want to see if lichens or special mosses develop on it, though a fox or badger or child may take it away before this has time to happen.

As time goes by this project looks more and more like a bower bird's nest.

A lesser housefly, Fannia similis

Every summer I come across dozens of flies like this in M3. Although they look similar – the little brown jobs of the fly world – they have many small differences between species. In the case of this group it is particularly the bristles of the legs, head and thorax that help to define each species.

The genus Fannia has many species ranging from orange yellow to jet black. They breed in a wide range of decaying vegetable materials and other substrates and present the entomologist with that fascination of subtle variations on a theme that one often encounters with wildlife and, indeed, many other areas. Stamp collectors, for example, often pay large sums of money for stamps with minor imperfections or variations and there are many sought after forms of our ordinary, non-commemorative British postage stamp (the Machin definitive).

This is the sixth Fannia species that I have recorded in the Square Metre.

Smooth tare, Vicia tetrasperma

The smooth tares in M3 are now in full flower, though that seems a bit of an overstatement for something as tiny and inconspicuous as these blooms.

In close up they are attractive and patterned with what look like pollen guides, but I have never seen any insect make a visit (though this can sometimes happen after dark). However, they set plenty of seed so are presumably self-pollinating. Soon their four-seeded pods will develop: mouse peas as they were sometimes called.

Common cardinal beetle, Pyrochroa serraticornis

Every year a few of these beetles appear in the Metre at the end of May and beginning of June, having spent their early stages in dead wood somewhere nearby.

Usually they are very active in the daytime scrambling over the vegetation like slow acrobats. They are quite large beetles and they weigh plants down, so they sway in gentle parabolas from one stalk or leaf to another. There is a scarcer relative, the black-headed cardinal beetle. It does occur in the neighbourhood, but I await the pleasure of welcoming one to M3.

An orb web spider, Mangora acalypha

A very attractive small orb web spider, Mangora acalypha, appeared in The Waste today spinning a web between one of the rosebay plants and some grasses.

Although widespread in southern England, often in heathland locations, there seem to be rather few Sussex records, from the heaths in the centre and west of the area and in my own parish of Sedlescombe about 500 metres from home

The June view

I thought it might be worth posting a photograph of the Square Metre at the beginning of each month just to show what it looks like. So here is the June picture taken square on from the south. Trouble is the photograph does not really look much like the real thing with the eye constantly focussing and re-focussing on the detail.

Features in the picture include the tall, 5-stemmed ragwort towards the right and the dead ragwort from last year left of the birch tree. Bits of box are poking through the brambles trained up North Wall. In front there is the wire netting guard to stop rabbits eating the dandelion, Taraxacum pseudohamatum. The wire could go now.

June is here

Though it remains cool and damp with frequent rain showers, the evening Metre presents a splendid orchestration of green shades and shapes lit here and there by soprano notes of magenta and yellow and basses of dark purple and brown. There are highlights and shadows, silvered droplets and quantum entanglements of leaf and air.

Writing, as I often seem to do, about the indescribable complexity of late spring M3 brings the artist Monet to mind and the way he painted and re-painted his lily pond and other subjects: always different and always the same.

In front of North Wall the marmite green bottle brushes of ripening sweet vernal grass spikes remind me of Australian callistemons.

As though to echo my own ruminations the sorrel, the ragwort and the birch have all reached to about one metre tall, all seem to stand within an invisible cube or a ball of air.

The birds sing, the bees hum, the midgelets bite my head. It is the first evening of another month, the month when haymaking starts, the month of midsummer.