Safety Improvement Works – B2102, Pound Lane Area
Check Safety Improvement Works – B2102, Pound Lane Area
Annual Canvass 2026
Check your household’s electoral register details
Cost of Living Support
Support available for residents, including the 2026 Back to School Payment
Free Bus Travel for Children
Children aged 5–15 can travel free throughout August
Help Protect Our Countryside
Take care with fires and BBQs – and please respect your neighbours
Bird in Eye North
Planning Meeting Minutes – 29 July 2026
Free Life-Saving Training
St John Ambulance Training – October 2026
July 2026
The long balmy days of July are upon us, and populations of natural organisms are at their most dynamic. We had a “heat dome” in June with record temperatures across Britain and Europe. In England, there is now a natural abundance and activity with new flowers, insects and fledged birds. Also, plenty of predation and animals avoiding being prey. There are reports of nestling bird mortality, possibly caused by the extreme June heat. July temperatures in England are usually high, frosts unlikely. The sea temperature around our coasts is increasing and humans are thinking of, or having, a summer holiday. This is a great month for nature watching! Look out for the striking day flying five-spot burnet moth (Zygaena trifolii) or six-spot burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae). The yellow and black caterpillars of these moths like to eat a plant called bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), also known as eggs and bacon. The adult moths are black with red spots and will be mating and laying new eggs on their food plants. Both forms of these moths and their caterpillars are toxic if eaten, but they are honest about it, having evolved bright colours to advertise that fact. Predators such as birds also know that. Most brightly coloured insects are toxic if eaten, for this reason. They do not want to be eaten so the ones that are both toxic and brightly coloured tend to survive. Predators soon learn this because they see other animals ill or dying that have eaten a conspicuous toxic insect, or else have tried eating them and got ill, survived, and learned the lesson. However, flowers have done the opposite. Those that are brightly coloured actively attract insects to their nutritious nectar by being colourful. Consequently, the fed insects get a dusting with pollen when taking the nectar, just as the plant intends. Consequently, the insects will pollinate the next flower of that plant species that they visit. This facilitates fertilization of the seeds which are eventually shed from the plant, creating the next generation.
Bright coloration or conspicuousness in nature is known as an honest signal to help with survival. For example, brightly coloured male birds such as the bullfinch with its bright pink breast is telling the dull coloured female that it is strong enough to defend itself even though it is conspicuous. Hence colour can be an honest signal of strength because the bird has survived. The black and brown female is cryptic so that a predator cannot easily see her nesting. Dull or camouflaged animals and plants are described as cryptic. They are trying to avoid being detected. Brightly coloured, conspicuous plants and animals always have a survival reason for being so. Likewise, male crickets and grasshoppers are conspicuously noisy, informing females of their location, but if a predator approaches a noisy male cricket – he will stop stridulating and hide because he is also cryptically camouflaged and has good hearing and sight. This is also a problem for scientists to find and observe them. For this reason, many very interesting things occur in nature that most people do not see.
June 2026
June brings us the longest days of the year, but not necessarily the warmest. It takes time for the high summer sunshine quantity to translate into warmer seas and landmasses. There is an inevitable lag. The Atlantic conveyer (Gulf Stream) is our cooling system in the summer, often making coasts cooler than inland. The reverse is true in winter, water from the Gulf of Mexico keeps the sea from freezing and moderates the air temperature over the coast, often preventing frosts when inland areas like Uckfield, Framfield and East Hoathly are freezing. Britain is on a similar latitude (51 – 55° N) to inland Moscow in Russia and Saskatoon in Canada. Both the latter seriously freeze up in winter.
Let us enjoy flaming June! It is the time when most birds and other diurnal animals are breeding, especially insects. Many meadow flowers will be blooming good! Insects will be harvesting nectar from these plants and accidentally transferring male pollen from their flower anthers to the female sticky stigmas of neighbouring close and distant relatives. This sets into motion the development of viable mixed gene seeds in the the plant’s ovary, ready for a later explosion of these seeds into an unsuspecting world. It is this gene mixing that has led to the wonderful natural variety that we now see. This can also be a mixed blessing to us humans. If we are gardeners, we want colourful managed gardens of flowers wherever they come from, like polyanthas, hyacinths, pansies, arums and geraniums. Many of these are exotics originating from other countries, non-native to the British Isles. These can cause problems if they escape into the countryside, hybridising with wildflowers and out-competing them, leading to the truly native plants becoming rare. Or else, they simply colonise large areas of land and become dominant. An example of unintended hybridisation is the Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) with the British bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta). Hybrids are common where gardens meet wildwood. Examples of unintended colonisation by alien invaders include Japanese knotweed(Reynoutria japonica), which is very difficult to eradicate. Also, horizontal cotoneaster (Cotoneaster horizontalis) from the Far East, whose seeds are eaten by birds and pass out in faeces in wild places such as the South Downs where it often thrives. Also, Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) which was once planted next to the River Uck in Buxted, and now dominates downstream riverine habitats all the way to Lewes, including Hempstead meadows Local Nature Reserve in Uckfield. Finally, the bridge forming rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum) which took 14 years to be eliminated from Lake Wood Woodland Trust reserve in Rocks Road, Uckfield. All of these are a problem in Sussex and other parts of Britain. There is, happily, a modern trend for gardeners to plant native meadow plants and seeds in their gardens and to rewild parts of the garden to allow our indigenous flora and fauna to thrive alongside us humans. The rewards can be amazing!
Local Government Reorganisation in East Sussex.
Consultation Launch