21st June to end August.
Two and a half months ago (two and a half months!) I was waiting for my first sighting of a common blue butterfly, and there he was, a bright new blue male on the 24th June. Seeing him told me that it was summer, always has done, don’t know why but they always appear around that third week of June, and spring lasts until about then, I think anyway, and he is such a summery butterfly, as blue as a summer sky, as blue as July harebells.
If you think of the summer in terms of sunshine, then our summer this year lasted about a week, the week following the appearance of the common blue. Our summer was June really, this year, that was when we had summer temperatures and lots of sunny days. After that…July, which on the whole was drab, dull and often wet with here and there a sunny end to a wet day, or a sunny start to a wet day. And August, well, we may as well write August off, an awful month of rain and more rain and then very heavy rain, with even less sunshine.
Back in June, the summer was beginning; now, it has gone, and so has a year gone, it is a year ago more or less when I first started to write this ‘wildlife diary’, and all that was going on then is going on again now, as this great globe has tilted us once more that bit further away from the sun and cool autumn winds speak of the approaching winter.
The last time there were pipits and skylarks in the fields they were northbound, bound for the uplands and bringing with them the spring. They’re back in the fields again now, only this time they are leaving as they feel and sense the coming cold. It’s nice to have these hill birds so close by that have been good company over the spring and summer months up on the high ground, but unlike in the spring when they are just arriving and you know you’ll be seeing and hearing them over the coming weeks and months, now you know that that is them leaving, they’re on their way. Autumn is all about departures, endings; autumn is an ending, the end of a year. I’ll miss them, miss them on the hills and miss them over the winter months, which make it all the more of a joy to see them again each spring.
And just as last year when the hill birds came down from the hills, again there are goldfinch charms feeding on thistle and knapweed on the meadow, again local (not yet will we see geese southbound from the very far north) greylag geese are back in their wintering fields, again woodland birds band and roam together through their wonderful realm of trees, and again as last year the wet august is seeing many of our summer swallows leave early, and I don’t blame them for going. There are sparrowhawks about again too, this time two beautiful young females have been at the birds in the gardens. Last years single young female did well and I think would have made it through the winter, how will these two fair in the coming weeks?
All these goings on that happen at this particular time of the year are predictable, expected, just as are the cooler days and colouring up of the trees, as is the rowan and blackberry crop, and the browning of the fields, and the falling of seeds that spring flowers began, geese back in their fields and waders moving along the shores, and the earlier ends to days. But there are always surprises in nature, always something new, and always all of these nature happenings intermingle and interplay in different, unexpected and unpredictable ways. Add to all of that the different light, the rain the wind the sun, and add still the way that all of these things touch us in different ways, how seeing and being with nature makes us feel on different days at different times of the year, like the pipits bringing gladness in the spring, and going away with sadness in the autumn. No two days are ever the same in nature, be them just days apart or from the same time of year a year ago.
So what about all those weeks between the end of June and now? More summer butterflies appeared not long after the common blue, big showy dark-green fritillaries, such strong flyers, and brown meadow browns on more buoyant wings bounced about the meadows. And scarce mountain butterflies, large heaths. More painted ladies, an exceptional year for them across the whole country. Brand new peacocks before July was out, thanks to those that made it through the winter. Only the odd sighting of oak top dwelling purple hairstreaks, the weather during their flight period has been awful, again, it can’t be doing the local population of this species any good. Over all, a very poor year for butterflies, in fact out of the seventeen years of monitoring butterflies here this is going to be the third or forth worst year on record.
Not a great year for dragons and damsels either, except for those fortunate enough to be on the wing in sunny June. I came across a golden ringed dragonfly, still attached to the grass stem that it had decided to cling to until the sun came again to warm it into mobility, only the sun hadn’t come again, instead cold heavy rain had pounded the vegetation and the insect down toward the wet ground and into water running off the hill. It was holding on to the grass stem, and to life, just. I helped it out of the water and moved it to where the wind might dry it out, but it would need the sun, and I don’t think it would have got any in time to save it. That encounter kind of summed up the summer for me.
Then came one of those surprises, a butterfly surprise that I would have missed had I walked to the shop down the road instead of across the field. Its weak flight (a characteristic weak flight) and its longish wings, and it just looking different, caught my eye. A closer look, marsh fritillary! Dashed back to the house for the camera, and found it again, a beauty. What was it doing here? I know that they are on neighbouring Mull, and Lismore, but I have not seen them or known of them being here before. It was quite pale and worn looking. Quite a flight for this species, if it had come from either of those nearest places, for they are weak flyers and don’t go far anyway, being a sedentary species, normally staying put. A rare species too, so I was pleased to see it. I later reported the sighting to the local moth and butterfly recorder and it was a first record for Morvern, so I was even more pleased.
(I couldn’t help thinking of the marsh fritillary as a thank you. I was given a tatty display case of pinned butterflies that must have been decades old some time ago. I had never had it on show; it lay in a cupboard in the dark, gathering dust. I didn’t want it, but didn’t want to throw it out either. So I decided that I’d let them go, the butterflies. Years went by until last year I finally got round to it. One sunny afternoon I took the box down onto the meadow below the house, and opened it up. I tried to carefully remove the pin from the first butterfly, but its body just turned to dust between my fingers. Its wings though, caught in the breeze, blew about the inside of the display case as though wanting out, so I turned the box on its side and the wind took them, and the butterflies wings flew once more, for one last time, settling among the grasses and flowers looking beautiful again in the sun. The rest went the same way, free at last and where they belong, in the sun and open air. It was around about that spot that I found the marsh fritillary)
That same day, in the afternoon, another surprise, a magnificent great northern diver on a fresh water loch, what was it doing here, in June? Many winter around our shores, but only a few stay for the summer. A species out of place, or rather in the right place at the wrong time (although they do prefer the sea around here to fresh water). But think of the bird not as a species but as an individual, what is its story? Where did it hatch out of the egg, Iceland, Greenland? How many summers has it spent in those northern climes among snowy owls, gyr falcons and arctic foxes? What extreme weather has it been through at sea wintering around the coasts of Scotland and northern Scandinavia? What’s it like, great northern diver, diving beneath the waves to chase and catch fish and search for molluscs on the sea bed?
There have been three jays around about the woods of Morvern for a few years now, but only this year did they find there way into the wood above the loch where they spent most of the summer, and it was nice to hear their harsh calls and glimpse their creamy pink and black and white and blue plumes through the oak trees now and then, reminding me of home. But my days out in the woods and on the hills during this summer have been fewer than I would have liked. Although just one or many, they are all special in some way, there is always something to remember. A flight of Golden plover lit by the sun shining through lifting cloud on a mountain top, and the sudden view, familiar, yet in that instant after seeing nothing but white mist for hours, stunning, taking my breath away. And quietly sitting, watching, tired after play, like a puppy dog, all thick legs and fluff, fox cub, out on the grass among the boulders of its mountain home. (Yes, that lady fox did have cubs). How will your story go little fox, good luck.
I do love these cool, refreshing end of summer days, the autumn for me is a little bit sad in many ways, time to think about the seasons of the year, to wonder about how they are doing and how they will get on, all those birds and animals that you spent time with, to ponder about the coming winter, we are nearing an ending, but nature never comes to a stop. Just as the spinning world will bring us another day following a night it will after another winter spin another spring our way again next year… the merry pipits and skylarks will come back and bring it with them.
