August 2014
July has brought hot weather and thunder-storms. How great for nature that it is getting both warmth and moisture to make things grow. However, the heat seems to be outgunning the rain, and many streams have stopped flowing, and we are still having to water parts of our garden. If you have a bird bath, please remember to top it up, as lack of water in the summer is one of the most potent killers of birds and other wildlife.
The butterflies continue to be a treat, and it looks like being a great year for them. The honeybees also seem to be doing well, with bee keepers being able to extract copious amounts of honey from their hives. Bumblebees also seem to be doing well. Their life-cycle is rather different from honeybees, and generally gets completed by the end of August. The queens then go looking for places to spend the winter before starting their new nests in the following spring.
The ants went on their nuptial flights during mid to late July. This normally happens when the air is hot and humid. The males and queens fly up towards the sun, mate, the males die and the queens land, bite off their wings and seek a place to start a new colony. The black ants (Lasius niger) particularly like nesting under paving stones. The small yellow meadow ant (Lasius flavus) prefers to nest in the ground under long grass, and build a tussock. It often lives with a tiny white relative of the woodlouse called Platyarthrus hoffmannseggii which wanders the tunnels that the ants make and cleans up any detritus material in the nest.
Lammas (or loaf mass) is the 1st August. This is the Celtic harvest festival. Look out for Lammas growth in the trees, especially oak, ash, beech, sycamore, yew, scots pine, and hawthorn. This is a second flush of leaves that the tree produces to compensate for the loss of leaves due to them being eaten by caterpillars or damaged in other ways during June and July. It does not occur in poplar, birch and willow. The old leaves become rich in tannins which makes the leaves bitter and inedible. The new flush is usually too late for the insects. The tannin is also passed to the bark of the oak tree to prevent damage there, but is used by people to tan (preserve) hide to make leather.