However, once lunchtime came the sun was out, the sky was blue and the crickets were buzzing – the fields sounded like they were electrified.  This is a photo of a grasshopper that I saw, but there were definitely crickets about – I saw them and heard them, but didn’t manage to get a good photo.  Also about this afternoon were butterflies, hoverflies, damselflies, other flies….  I spent five minutes watching a dragonfly (I know not what type) hunting insects in the sunlight – fantastic.

Although the berries are now colouring on the shrubs and trees, and many of the bright, Summer flowers have gone to seed, there are still some out there to brighten up the roadsides.

I tried to point out that climate change is not necessarily the issue, that wastefulness, loss of resources and biodiversity is the issue – particularly for those in the room with young children.  The answer was that they would be able to watch the now extinct butterflies on a lovely big flat screen television.  Apart from thinking that was a pretty pathetic and blinkered response (not to mention that televisions require resources to make and run), I started to imagine a world where the only interaction we had with nature was through videos of long dead species and then I shuddered.

The real problem is that in addition to the lack of  appreciation of the effect we are having on our environment, I am not sure we have it in our power to change these attitudes.

However, it is now buddleia flowering time and my hopes are starting to rise again.  Earlier in the week there were a few white butterflies about, and I got excited when I saw my first Peacock of the summer.  Today, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I should have been doing some coursework, but, the sun was shining etc.  I managed to count up to 10 peacock butterflies at the same time – there may have been more, but I can only see part of the shrub.  I also saw four whites over the back garden, a small tortoiseshell in the front and back (although it could be the same one), a gatekeeper and, for the first time in the garden this year, I a saw a comma butterfly – see the picture on the left – so called because of the white, comma-shaped mark on the underside of its wing.  As yet, no Red Admirals or Painted Ladies, but we are only just starting the second week of August and the admirals tend to hang about until October / November.

Peacock butterfly picture below is just because it is such a gorgeous creature that I had to include it!

Fast forward a year and with my new found interest in invertebrates I started to discover there were more bees about than I had realised, including my favourite, the red-tailed bumblebee, and others such as the wonderfully named hairy footed flower bee.  Despite many attempts and lots of photos, I still felt at a loss when it came to positively identifying them.  When I saw an advert for a bumblebee identification session at Leicester University on a Sunday afternoon then I signed up straight away.

I arrived early and thought I would go and try and find some bees to photograph – as you would (and, amazingly, got some photos I was really pleased with).  They had some lavender beds in their herb garden which we literally buzzing as well as some other plant such as echinops which also seemed pretty popular.

Anyway, back to the course.  It was run by a lovely lady called Maggie, who is obviously obsessed by bees. She went through the lifecycle of bees, some of the differences between them and included a list of plants that she had created and which she had subsequently grouped according to how many species of bee visited them.  I came away realising that I had to be a little more choosy about the plants that I am putting in the garden and with some ideas for research that I could also undertake.  First, however, I need to be able to identify them.

I was hoping to come away from a couple of hours amongst the flowers with the ability to recognise the common bumbles, the big six.  But, there are queens, workers and males – so the big six became 18, and then there are the cuckoo bumble bees – another 4 types with males and females so we are now at 26!  Suddenly it was not as easy as I had hoped.  (Cuckoo bumbles don’t need workers as they parasitise the nests of particular bumbles so use their workers to care for their offspring.)  Then, as the bees get older, just like us they fade and get greyer, well, paler – so then all the descriptions seem to go out of the window!

Did I come away knowing many of the 26?  Well, we did find four of the big six – but they are mainly males and workers at this time of year, the queens are in the nests.  So, I can recognise a carder bee (a little fluffy, ginger bee), and the red-tailed bumble bee, I will also have a go at the buff and white tailed bees  (the male white-tailed bumble bees are particularly lovely – see photo above), but we didn’t see the early or garden bumblebees, so I will carry on looking.  However, we did find three or four species of cuckoo bee, which I may have seen before and just not realised what they were (such as the one in the photo on the right)!  So, although I am not fully convinced that I can get the big six yet, I have now a better idea, and think I can have a go at finding cuckoo bees.  I will also be planning some winter research and some more bee-friendly plants for next year.

Unlike the plants in my garden, a lot of the wildflowers still seem to be surviving, although, as expected these are mainly the perennials.  A lot of the grasses are now looking as though they are living in Texas, not in Daventry, and the usually green and pleasant land is turning distinctly straw-coloured.  The flowers that seem to be doing well at the moment are the yellow ragwort, purple thistles, and the statuesque Rosebay Willowherb.  This is a plant that has spread rapidly since the introduction of the railways and is present on almost all railway embankments that I have seen, along with motorway verges.  It is also called fireweed due to its colonisation of areas destroyed by fire.  In the autumn you will see thousands of the seeds carried on the wind, helping it to spread.  However, in spite of its encroaching nature, I think that, close-up it is a remarkably pretty flower, and, as a wildflower, is a food source for many insects.  The plant also has culinary uses, its roots have been used in stews and it leaves in salads, being valued as a source of Vitamins A and C.

My favourite rose is now reaching the end of its flowering period, and round, fat rose hips are starting to appear on rosa rugosa, reminding me that autumn is not too far away.  These are also a good source of Vitamin C as are most rosehips, and are often collected to make rosehip syrup.

For the last month I have been wondering what has happened to all of the butterflies, there don’t seem to be many at all.  I am eagerly awaiting the flowering of the buddleia to see if this will bring them out.  However, I have seen a large number of dark, restless butterflies, flitting along the grasses in the Country Park and the hedgerows in the industrial estate.  These are ringlet butterflies, and they are not always co-operative when trying to take photos!  Their favourite nectar sources are bramble and privet flowers, which explains their appearance at this time of year when the hedgerows are full of these flowers (the smell of the privet is lovely at the beginning of the July).

The bees have all been busy in the garden, although I think they are lamenting the passage of the sage flowers.  Our verbena bonariensis is not as prolific this year, and, as I noted earlier, the buddleia is not yet out, so they are having to content themselves with thyme and oregano as well as the last of the honeysuckle.  Red tailed bumblebees (which happen to be my favourite) are in the garden each day, along with others that I think are buff-tailed and garden bumblebees, but I am still working on my identification skills.

This time of year also sees the skies starting to fill with house martins and swifts.  The family groups feeding in the long evenings, but again, they will soon be gone.  In the garden we have had several goldfinch chicks, and incredibly noisy they are too!  They sound a little like a computer game, chirping and whirring.

The garden is remaining remarkably resilient in the dry, parched weather (I rarely water anything in the garden, it can fend for itself), but the pond is getting incredibly low.  We have discovered that we have at least one frog in the garden, and I am now happy in the knowledge that the pond is home to more than just and abundance of water snails.  I assume that the frogs and toad spend a lot of their time in the vegetation around the garden.

I did get a good shot of damselflies a couple of weeks ago with my compact camera whilst on a lunchtime stroll, but I hoped to be able to get something a little better when armed with my ‘proper’ camera.  In some ways I was disappointed, the damselflies were ever so jumpy, as soon as you moved they were off.   Also, there were areas which looked perfect for other insects, but they were just not there, all those obliging umbellifers at the side of the path, and they were empty (I found the same problems at the Country Park this afternoon).

However, I did achieve what had become an unconscious ambition.  For the last year or two, mainly as a result of my macro photography I have developed an interest in insects.  The increase in the size of our pond has added damselflies and dragonflies to the list that was previously populated by butterflies and bees.  As a result, and, through viewing various nature programs, I have always wanted to see a demoiselle, a type of damselfly.  Particularly, a Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx Splendens).  You may be wondering what I am talking about, but these are particularly beautiful damselflies, that flutter like butterflies and sparkle in shades of green and blue.  They are truly beautiful (in fact there is a Beautiful Demoiselle, but I think the Banded is prettier).  I never thought that I would see one, but they are apparently present at Brandon Marsh.

To cut a long story short, I got a brilliant birthday present, and had been at Brandon just long enough to drink a hot chocolate and wander a few hundred yards onto the reserve before one tantalisingly zipped past – I got just enough of a glimpse to realise what I had missed.  Then, no more, but some beautiful emerald coloured damselflies which did not seem to want to stay still – it was going to be one of those days.

On my way back from the furthest of the hides I decided to risk going the long route back through an area which is usually too boggy to try – and, despite all the dry, hot weather, it was still muddy in places.  My walk was rewarded, Banded Demoiselles were there in numbers.  They were also pretty nervous and any movement or the slightest breeze sent them fluttering up.  Getting a photo was difficult, and I apologise for the poor quality, but I think you will agree that these are lovely insects (unless you are my mother, who doesn’t like any form of nature apart from blue tits, robins and some butterflies).  I have since discovered that the green damselfly is in fact the female Banded Demoiselle.

What are about in abundance are damselflies.  A walk round a lake on a sunny day reveals them in numbers.  I managed to take some of my best pictures ever. This was taken along the path, and is my first bit of insect porn.  I love the colours of the damselflies against the green of the leaf.  I think that these are common blue damselflies, but they are apparently very similar to the azure and variable blue damselflies and I am just not good enough yet.  There were also lots of large red damselflies about.  Last week I also saw a lot of Blue Tailed damselflies which flew up whenever I brushed past some grass by the lake.

The sage is flowering now, and is bringing a lot of honey and bumble bees to the garden whilst the birds foot trefoil is attracting them to the back which is good because that is where my broad beans (the first time I have tried growing them) are flowering.

Wild flowers are still in abundance, although lots have gone to seed.  The grasses, for those not attacked by their pollen, are looking pretty in both the sun and the rain an around the lake there are a lot of flag iris about, looking bright amongst the green.

The garden is covered in birds every morning.  The finches, green, gold and bullfinches turn up every day, making a lot of noise and getting through a lot of sunflower hearts.  We also had the first baby great tits last weekend.  In recent years they have always appeared over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May.  This year they are a week late.  They usually turn up at the same time as the baby blue tits, both can be distinguished from their parents by the more squeaky noise they make and the fact that they look as though they have faded in the wash.  However, I haven’t seen any blue tits yet, even though the ones on Springwatch have fledged.

I have seen very few butterflies this week, but, now that the first of our honeysuckles has come out in flower I am hoping to see a lot more bees just outside the kitchen window.

Most of the trees now seem to have their summer foliage on, even the ash and the oak are clothed in green.

Onto the flowers…..  I went out looking for orchids this week, but the place I saw them last year appears to have been mown to within an inch of its life.  However, there are a lot more flowers out there waiting for you.  Firstly, brightening up many a hedgerow and road side is the pink campion.  I spoke to someone a couple of years ago from the Peterborough area who said that at that end of the River Nene they mainly have white campions whilst the Northampton end is populated by the pink campion.  This is  a perennial plant, the pink apparently being a product of the white and red campion.

Not to be outdone by my favourite rose, rosa rugosa, the dog roses, rosa canina, are starting to appear in the hedgrows.  These are mainly shades of pink, but some are almost white.  This is James’s favourite, and we have some growing in the garden which we have grown from seed that we collected from the industrial estate.  He wouldn’t let me plant Rosa Rugosa, maybe it was to make sure I kept going to work!  Speaking of which, I no longer have to stop and snort, there are so many flowers out now that the air is filled with the scent in the morning.

My final spot of the week are the cheerful ox-eye daisies (leucanthemum vulgare), members of the chrysanthemum family which are showing up at the roadsides now.  You will have to excuse the picture, there are not many in the estate, and I have not managed to get to the edge of town where there are lots of them across from the scout hut.  Interestingly, many herbivorous insects do not like the daisy, the juice is apparently very bitter, so it used to be mixed with animal bedding in order to deter flies.

So, on the what’s new front, what is new?  For starters, my favourite rose, rosa rugosa, is beginning to flower.  I know they look blousy and flowery in their barbie pink and startling white, but the smell has to rival honeysuckle as my favourite scent.  Fortunately they are a favourite on industrial estates allowing me to stop every day to get a snort on my way to work.  Other flowers are out too, buttercups are now the yellow flower of choice for all self-respecting roadsides, as their predecessor dandelions seem to be going to seed.

There are other newcomers in the flower world if you look closely, including the very delicate looking vetch.  This member of the legume family seems to be fairly abundant once you start looking for it, mainly preferring slightly shadier conditions.

Many of the shrubs and trees appear to be flowering, with the hawthorn in full flower on both shady and sunny sides of the street.  Dogwood and sorbus (aka Mountain Ash or Rowan) are also showing off their white flowers, and the horse chestnuts are in full bloom.

I have no new birds to report, but the starlings and sparrows seem to have fledged and they are now busy repairing their nests (possibly with the aid of leaves pulled from my sweet peas) ready for the next brood.

On the insect front, I saw both a Holly Blue and a couple of Cabbage Whites in the garden today.  I am still chasing a picture of one of the Orange Tip butterflies that are patrolling verges and hedgerows, but in the mean time I did get a less than satisfactory picture of a Speckled Wood with its wings closed, an insect which is appearing in ever increasing numbers along the old railway track.

Today was also a good day for damselflies, with numbers emerging from the pond getting into double figures – the bamboo and rhubarb appearing to be good places to sit in the sun!

In the garden, perhaps half of the lettuces I planted out last week are still surviving, but one of my courgette seedlings has passed away, and my beans are awaiting the installation of a suitable climbing frame so they can be planted out (small hint there).  The bees are still making use of the pulmonaria, but are also being attracted to the aquilegia which is now in flower – although mainly in shades of purple and pink – oh, how I covet the white ones I saw round the corner!

In the verges there are now some buttercups competing with the dandelions, but I was surprised to see some clover flowering already on the industrial estate.  I didn’t think it would be out this early, so that shows how little I know.

I have no new bird sightings for the week although the number of house martins seems to be increasing which is good news because there is some concern about the numbers returning from their wintering grounds.  We have started feeding mealworms to the garden birds in the last week (not a cheap hobby as they can easily eat their own bodyweight in worms every day – or so it seems).  The main takers are about six sparrows and one great tit.  The starlings would be the main takers if we hadn’t put them behind bars (the mealworms that is, not the starlings), so, instead, they have taken to waiting for a sparrow to land with a mealworm and then they attack it.  Some have learned to fly straight off with their booty and avoid the ambush.  Other birds are making regular appearances with chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches as well as a robin and blue tit visiting each morning.  At work I have been lucky enough to watch a few pairs of bullfinches from my office window – they have been on the grass eating the seeds of the dandelions.

I finally saw a speckled wood butterfly this morning, well, about 4 or 5.  They were busy patrolling the nettles and garlic mustard on the old railway track as we walked back from town.  There were a couple of orange tips about as well.  Hopefully there will be more if the weather stays warm.  Today was also the day for my first damselfly of the year.  I spotted this large red damselfly in the garden, its wings sparkled in the sunlight as it flew up from near the pond to rest on the bamboo.  I found a larva case on a plant nearby so I think it may have emerged today.

All in all it has been quite a good week for nature spotting in Northamptonshire.