Wednesday 16th July 2025 - A Few Hours Later, No Bats and Remember These

After writing, in my last blog, about it being cooler on Saturday morning, a few hours later it all changed.  In the morning, we walked along field edges where, apart from one kestrel all was pretty quiet on the wildlife scene.  By the afternoon, it had warmed and we decided to repeat the walk.  What a change, this time we saw two kestrels which were mobbing two buzzards.   There were plenty of bees plus gatekeepers, meadow browns, commas and speckled wood butterflies, along with a few cinnabar moths taking advantage of the ragworts.  For me, the ‘icing on the cake’ was seeing a hummingbird hawkmoth; they never fail to fascinate me.  After a pathetic crop of sloes last year, which was down to the cold spring, this year there are good numbers in the hedgerows.  This reminded us, we need to purchase a cheap bottle of white rum, so we can make sloe rum, (recommended by a villager) once the sloes have fully ripened.  Down in the grass, grasshoppers, although not visible, were making their presence known with their distinctive sound.  Such a change from the morning.  As we walked, I took some photos which I will use, in the colder months to practice my drawing.

I am wondering what has happened to the pipistrelle bats.  On a summer’s evening while sat in our conservatory, when the light starts to fade, we’ve seen them dipping and diving across ours and neighbours’ gardens.  This year there have been none.  We didn’t have a particularly cold winter, which could possibly have resulted in their demise and we are not aware of any activity which may have destroyed their roosts.  There may be other bat species in the area, those which feed later but so far, I have not ventured out into the garden during the hours of darkness with my bat detector to find out.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve quite often been awake just before dawn. Often, this is down to Sid, our cat, who wakes me up as he comes and goes throughout the summer nights.  It’s a special time of day, as I watch the sky over the sea in shades of red and orange, then the birds start singing, usually it’s a blackbird which leads the dawn chorus and added to this is the gentle putting of the engines of fishing boats as they head out to haul shannocks of pots.  In the dark depths of winter, I will remember these mornings and look forward to when we can enjoy summer again. 

Today’s photo is of a gatekeeper butterfly which are quite plentiful this year; they particularly like blackberry flowers.