23 August 2019. Quite
hot so most of the invertebrates sitting it out in the shade. I did a little grass cutting of the
Conservation Lawn. Some of the hogweeds now have their characteristic heads of
brown striped seeds. The western dandelion
does not look happy: its leaves are flat on the ground and look as though they
have wilted. Perhaps something is
attacking the root.
24 August 2019 Gathering heat, so I made an early visit to
Emthree. Splendid two-spot ladybird, Adalia
bipunctata, shining black with red spots, resting on an oak leaf. A female scorpion fly struggled over the
Conservation Meadow grass. Everything
else silent and still in the sunshine. A
black slug with yellowish orange undercarriage slid determinedly across Amazon
Square.
25 August 2019 I fancied some unripe hogweed seeds were
swollen and remaining green. Possibly gall
midges: more likely my imagination. Very
hot max 27.5° in the shade.
26 August 2019 Even hotter: 29.7° max in the shade. Terrific glare from the open areas of
Emthree. Younger leaves on the large
ragwort wilting in the heat. I found a
knapweed seedling to the east of Amazon Square and a tiny cotoneaster on the edge
of Medlar Wood.
Ginger brown carder bees are constant visitors to a knapweed
flower in The Waste. I have concluded
that one of the rose species also in The Waste is another small-flowered
sweetbriar
Rosa micrantha though there are no scent-bearing hairs on the
solitary hip (there are on the petiole and on the under surface of the leaves). The prickles are quite small and the whole
plant not very vigorous, so it is possibly a hybrid.
27 August 2019. Very
hot again. Yesterday was 28.7° at the maximum. A red admiral butterfly came and sat briefly
on my shoulder. I found an oak leaf covered
in spangle galls, Neuroterus quercusbaccarum, in the lane and searched
the oak cordon to see if Emthree had any.
There were none (or ‘was none’?) but I did find a currant gall on the
underside of a leaf blade. This appears
to be a different form of N. quercusbaccarum. When I looked for it the following day it had
disappeared – fallen to the ground I thought.
I have put little stones that I find here and there on my walk to mark
small plants I might overlook when cutting.
I reflected on the mowers, strimmers and chain saws that I
hear almost constantly when I am in Emthree.
If we had no tools, especially power tools, our houses would soon be in
a forest of tall trees, our artificial landscape would disappear and the Wild
Wood would return.
28 August 2019. I
have marked a seedling cotoneaster and a tiny seedling shoot of some other
plant with stones from the lane. The second
seedling shoot looks unusual. It has a straight
black stem with no visible cotyledons and small dark green leaves. I wondered if it might be a heather. We shall see.
There are three pieces of birch root about as thick as my
forearm that, for some reason, have arched above the soil in the Second
Meadow. The best one is just in front of
my seat. A polished mahogany colour with
whitish segment-like bands. It could be
part of a huge subterranean worm. They
are worth looking after as kind of natural Zen landscape elements in the
area. They also create small
microclimates by providing shelter with, perhaps, slightly warmer, wetter and safer
environments in their shelter for small plants and animals.
29 August 2019. Pleasantly
warm with some intermittent showers in the last 24 hours. The carder bee makes visits the solitary
knapweed flower with watch-setting accuracy. I wonder that there is any pollen or
nectar left.
I have now located five surfacing birch roots in the Second
Meadow apparently haphazardly distributed and pointing in various directions.
30 August 2019. A
cool and rather quiet day. There are several blackberry juice stains on the rocks
of Cynthia’s Ridge. These are where
birds have voided or excreted material still full of the purple juice. The western dandelion has leaf miners in some
of the central veins, which may be the cause of the rather sad overall
appearance of the plant. There are
several species of Diptera that could be the culprits.
I found another exposed birch root in the Second Meadow to
the east of this dandelion, putting the number of surfaced roots in this area
up to six.
31 August 2019. The
last day of meteorological summer and pleasantly warm and sunny. Flies are returning the blackberry-stained
stones on Cynthia’s Ridge. The leaf mines in the leaves of the western dandelion
are longer and more obvious. More
leaves, green, brown and yellow have fallen onto the Second Meadow giving it a
fin-de-saison feel.
1 September 2019. Have cut the south western quartile of The
Waste to ground level using a bread knife.
The soil surface, to which recent showers do not seem to have
penetrated, is pale grey and bumpy where there have been worm casts and other
small disturbances. There are dead grass
stems and blades of pallid fawn colour and some bright green leaves of bugle and
self-heal getting ready for next spring.
Tomorrow, or soon, I will give the area a further trim.
2 September 2019. Sunny after a cooler night than usual. I cut the south west quartile of The Waste as
close to the ground as I could with trimming shears. This area now looks much like the original
Square Metre when I started this project on 15 September 2003. I put a small piece of pure white gypsum rock
by the self-heal in front of my viewing seat.
A lesser hornet hoverfly, Volucella inanis, nectared briefly on the last
umbel of hogweed flower and nearby I found a rust fungus on an undeveloped
flowering shoot of marsh bird’s-foot trefoil.
The larvae of the hoverfly develop in wasps’ and hornets’ nests and neither
of these two insects has been very common this year, so it is good to see V.
inanis, which breeds in wasps' nests, is still about.
3 September 2019. This morning I found a forest bug, Pentatoma
rufipes, nestling in the leaves of the hornbeam cordon. The tiny plant in the Dust Bowl now it has
developed further looks like a vetch seedling.
A male hoverfly Myathropa florea (sometimes known as the false dronefly
or the dead head hoverfly) kept coming and going to the umbel of hogweed
flowers. This made me wonder why it made
these trips as, unlike bees, it has no hive or nest to supply with pollen and
nectar. Perhaps it was going to search
for a mate.
The new meadow cut in The Waste looks like my first action
in setting up the Square Metre Project on 15th September 2003.
4 September 2019. Rain
his morning but it has scarcely wetted the soil in Emthree. I visited quite late in the afternoon when
the shadows were lengthening across the bumpy ground of the New Quartile. It made me think of the beautiful last line of Virgil’s
first eclogue: maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae (and longer shadows
fall from the mountain heights).
There are some mosses growing on the worm casts in the New
Quartile – maybe I should have a shot at naming them.
I have accidentally scraped a patch of the very thin bark
from one of my exposed birch roots and was surprised to see that the cambium
layer beneath is a clear olive green.
5 September 2019. Cool
and sunny with a northerly wind. The
rust fungus, Puccinia hieracii, on the eastern dandelion is now having a debilitating effect on the
plant. Some small hoverflies and a
muscid explored the last hogweed umbel, but there were few other insects about. A blackcap was chipping away in the medlar
from which another fruit had fallen to land beside Second Meadow pond.
The cambium exposed yesterday on one of the surfaced birch
roots had changed from olive green to a very similar brown to the exterior
bark. It had gone from being very
noticeable to almost unnoticeable.
A speckled wood butterfly settled on an oak leaf which had a
whitewashed appearance where it had been infected by oak mildew, Erysiphe
alphitoides. While watching a Rhingia rostrata (scarce snout-faced hoverfly)
hide under a hazel leaf I noticed a very tortuous leaf mine probably of the least
nut-tree pigmy, Stigmella microtheriella, once thought to be the smallest
British moth.
6 September 2019. Cool
and mostly cloudy. The leaf mines in the western dandelion are spreading and
terminally damaging some of the older leaves. There also seem to be a few speckles
of the rust fungus that has infected the eastern dandelion.
7 September 2019. Cool and cloudy again. At 1pm it
started to rain. I found three small
blister mines on the lower leaves of the cordon oak. I think they are mines of the sawfly Profenusa
pygmaea.
8 September 2019. Sunny but still rather cool. A red
admiral did a brief fly round. This
butterfly has done well this year and our cloven gum box, Escallonia bifida, regularly
has several visiting the flowers. They
are continually chased by hornets that never seem to catch them.
The Second Meadow Pond was 2/3rds empty. There are very few insects evident except
various larger Calyptrates that forage about on the ground as well as
occasionally visiting flowers or resting on foliage.
9 September 2019. There is still a single, unopened flower on
the American willow-herb at the end of Cynthia’s Ridge. Today a black ant was exploring the higher
stems and I think it must have found some aphids, probably the green willowherb
aphid, Macrosiphum tinctum. There were a ringed, purple and red spots caused by a
microfungus on some leaves like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.
A flower has appeared on the self-heal plant near
the place my feet go when I am sitting on my seat and I marvelled at the colour
and biodiversity of a distorted fallen oak leaf on Conservation Lawn, colours
caused by maybe half a dozen species of microfungi growing on it.
A little gathering of black hole (Melanostoma) hoverflies
appeared suddenly on the last hogweed flowers, flowers that have lasted much
longer than those on neighbouring plants in Emthree. They do not, however seem to be setting seed.
10 September 2019. Comma
butterfly gliding and basking around the Green Sanctuary. A second hip on the older small-flowered
sweet-briar, Rosa micrantha, is turning red as it hangs suspended in the gloom
of Medlar Wood. I photographed the
microfungus on the American willowherb.
Quite difficult as it is so low down.
Had my annual health check in the village surgery and came through with
flying colours.
11 September 2019. Cold, grey and windy with the occasional rain
shower. A medlar has fallen, or rolled
into, the eastern dandelion. It should
provide a sort of fruity compost over time.
No insects today but the woodchip in the south west corner has been disturbed,
so something must have walked through the area.
Two pigeons were coo-ing nearby. The louder was, I think, the male. He was replied to by a softer, gentler warble
from the female who is sitting on a nest with two chicks in our Persian ironwood
bush. Very late for a bird’s nest, but
pigeons are strange creatures.
12 September 2019. A
little warmer and cloudy. A most
beautiful leaf of a pure yellow has landed in the centre of the eastern
dandelion. I am not sure what tree it has
come from but suspect it is an atypically-shaped birch leaf. There has been a few slight showers and it is
probably that this has revived the western dandelion from its rather sad
flatness.
13 September 2019. Getting warmer – a bit of an Indian summer. Creeping buttercup, generally described as a
pernicious weed, makes quite attractive patches of ground cover here and there
in the Second Meadow. The fret-sawed leaves
lie very flat on the ground where they grow in poor soil and produce the
occasional flower, though there are (is) none at the moment.
One or more birds have been splashing about in Second Meadow
Pond leaving tell tale feathers behind.
Today three quarters of the water was gone and one of the sandstone
pebbles from the bottom had been removed and lay on the nearby grass.
The sheared south west quartile of The Waste has started to
sprout grass shoots although conditions are very dry. A cut down knapweed has however produced a
bold tuft of grey green leaves. Insects
remain very scarce. Today only a few calyptrate
flies were about.
14 September 2019. A
lazy warmth has arrived. A Colletes bee
and some small fry visited the late hogweed flowers. The
ragwort was drooping in the heat.
Yesterday’s bright yellow leaf in the eastern dandelion has turned autumn
brown and rolled itself up.
15 September 2019. The
heat continues to build in strength.
Many of the smaller plants and seedlings are wilting and will die if we
have many more days of this heat. Grass
seedlings seem to cope with the heat better than most plants as do bugle and
self-heal.
Insects are very scarce again but a speckled wood butterfly
appeared, I suspect from a roosting place, deep in the longer vegetation of The
Waste. It fluttered about for half a
minute or so, rested on an oak leaf in the sunshine and made off down the
garden. I wondered what purpose it had in
mind.
16 September 2019. Warm and overcast. Several blister
mines have appeared on a leaf of the smaller birch. These later expanded and joined up as one large blotch. They looked most like the sawfly Fenusa pumila which I previously recorded in July 2008.
A number of seedlings have crisped up to a
point of no return in yesterday’s heat. I noticed one, possibly a scarlet pimpernel,
in the centre of the Dust Bowl, that looked dead whereas a similar one close to
an overground birch root had survived, perhaps due to the root’s creation of a
microclimate with slightly more moisture in the soil.
17 September 2019. Gentle warmth but Emthree very quiet.
The berries on the black bryony on the iron pole are still green, but
those in Brambly Hedge are bright red and ripe.
A drone fly preened itself on an ash leaf now slowly draining of
chlorophyll to lime green. Only wild
rose leaves are turning colour properly to bright yellow.
18 September 2019. Continuing warm sunshine after a colder night. There are some very delicate grass seedlings
in the Dust Bowl with purple bases to their leaves. They seem to survive the lengthening drought
well. Insects remain scarce: today I saw
only a black spider-hunting wasp and a flesh fly.
19 September 2019. Warmish after a cold night. I
have not seen any crane-flies this autumn and usually they are abundant in
Emthree, the garden and nearby fields. On 12 September 2005, for example, I
wrote of Emthree “The common crane-fly Tipula paludosa is now abundant
everywhere and I often see the females scrambling through the grass on egg-laying
excursions.”
A honeybee fossicked about on the last umbel of hogweed
flowers and a speckled wood butterfly floated about in Medlar Wood. Probably the same one I saw on 15 September. The pond in Second Meadow was nearly empty
and the drought continues to strike hard.
Today the St. John’s-wort by Cynthia’s Ridge was starting to shrivel.
20 September 2019. A
dry silence spreads over the ground with feelers of wind from time to time. A very pretty hoverfly, Metasyrphus
corollae, with lemon yellow inverted crescents down its body like some antique
military uniform, fed briefly on the last hogweed umbel flowers. The western dandelion has been half buried in
woodchip scuffed from the nearby path.
The small blister mines on the birch leaf have not changed. Maybe what is inside has stopped feeding and
will fall with the leaf.
21 September 2019. Autumn equinox. Warm sunshine, but rain
forecast. It seems to be very hot direct sunshine
that makes seedlings shrivel and other plants wilt. Some are better than others at surviving the
drought though. Second Meadow pond was nearly
empty and a speckled wood butterfly patrolled up and down along the edge of
Medlar Wood. The sunlight caught two
more small-flowered sweet-briar hips that I had not noticed before high up in
the medlar tree.
22 September 2019. There was some small rain during the
night, then a sunny break just after 11am.
I was surprised to see how positively some of the plants had responded
to the weather change. The small St.
John’s wort, for example, had come back to life after looking on its way out.
23 September 2019. Cool
mix of sun, cloud and showers. The earth
is still very dry but grass is starting to grow again. On arrival today I was given what sounded
like an angry buzzing by a queen hornet as she flew out from somewhere at the
rear of the Square Metre. They are not usually
aggressive creatures but this one sounded quite irritated. A woodpigeon also decided to land at the back
of Emthree and took off noisily as soon as it saw me. Plants continue to respond well to the
increasingly damp weather.
24 September 2019. Heavy
rain overnight and in the morning. The
ground now seems properly wetted.
25 September 2019. Intermittent
showers. Mosses have perked up and other
plants are continuing to enjoy the wet.
26 September 2019. Still
showery. One of the gladdon pods has
split to show a line of bright orange seeds.
A yellow fly, Phaonia pallida I think, fell into Second Meadow Pond and
swam feebly round without seeming able to get out. I lifted it from the water with a stick and
it flew off apparently none the worse for wear.
More seedlings are now appearing.
27 September 2019. Quite
wild weather with wind, sun and showers.
Lemony-lime ash leaves are popular as sunbathing stations for a range of
insects. These included the noon fly, Mesembrina
meridiana, the tapered drone fly, Eristalis pertinax, the scarce snout-faced
hoverfly, Rhingia rostrata, Eudasyphora cyanella, red admiral butterflies and
various other species. On hazel leaves
there was a gold belted hoverfly, Xylota segnis.
28 September 2019. A
windy, showery autumn day. Sunlit leaves
continued to attract several red admirals and other insects. The dying yellow ash leaves are covered in
brown speckles.
There was a sort of circus of ant like sepsid flies around Second
Meadow Pond and the nearby grass and leaves.
They walked rather than flew, characteristically waving their
wings. Occasionally they approached one
another and touched heads but it was more like a kiss than a butt. No doubt some sort of courtship ritual, very
well-choreographed but with no specific outcome that I could see. It appeared to be an isolated event and by 30th September they had gone..
29 September 2019. Heavy rain.
30 September 2019. An almost eerie autumn quietness with warm
but clouded sun. Grounded leaves are
increasing now with every variety of colour (except blue). There was a female crane fly, Tipula paludosa,
that had spread herself delicately with extended legs on a hornbeam leaf. This is the start of the autumn daddy-long-legs
season.
