August has been a relatively quiet month for our wildlife, an almost in- between season. The growth of vegetation however has exploded out of control everywhere, and until the last week it has been impossible to get onto the Nature Reserve at Hockenhull, and we’ve been waiting for a contractor to cut the Legion wildflower meadow. Teams of volunteers have worked extremely hard on the churchyard to cut down excessive growth and to prepare the ground for the planting wildflower seeds in the older area of the churchyard in 2022. During the past two years or so, when a section of the area has been left to itself, butterflies, moths and dragonflies have been seen more frequently. This year has been no exception with brown, southern hawker and common darter dragonflies, banded agrion and common blue damselflies being seen. Butterflies seen include small and large white, small tortoishell, red admiral, comma, peacock, heath brown, small copper, small skipper, holly and common blue butterflies.

A similar species list has been recorded on the Legion Meadow this summer, but my favourites from both sites has to be the small copper. This diminutive butterfly seems to enjoy the bright yellow corn marigolds that we grew from seed and planted on the meadow. Small skippers seem to enjoy this food but were also seen on several types of long grasses which currently still dominate the meadow. Purple hawkbit, which flourishes on the meadow, is just one of several purple/blue plants which can be seen late into August, whilst many of the early season flowers have now turned to seed, including the common spotted orchids and the ever growing number of yellow rattle plants. Visitors to the Meadow will have seen us plant 150 yellow rattle plants in two distinct areas in spring, and the idea behind this is to try to suppress the growth of grasses in future years. Yellow rattle also helps to protect other wild flowers especially orchids and we have been delighted to see our small area of common spotted orchids expand again this year. It is noticeable that they grown best together with yellow rattle plants.

Many of the Legion meadow plants are annuals, so it is important that when they are cut by the contractor they are allowed to lie for a few days before removing the vegetation. The seeds then lie on the ground and hopefully will germinate again next spring. Other new plantings this year have included plugs of ragged robin and red campion. These have been very successful and with the continued growth of species such as meadow cranesbill, purple vetch, meadow scabious, birds foot trefoil, meadow sweet and self heal, are providing real colour throughout the meadow through spring and early summer.

I’ve constantly complained this year about the dearth of birds like swallows, house martins and swifts, and it clearly has been a very poor season. The few swifts seen over the village, and Brown Heath Road didn’t stay long. A few house martins have been recorded in Church walks, and swallows seem to have been missing except for a few nests in Rowton. This week however has seen the gathering of up to 100 swallows in Croft Close, and it appears to be an annual trend. These mainly newly born swallows must nest relatively close to this “gathering ground” before their annual migration, but what instinct is passed on from parent to young that they gather in the same place as previous generations of swallows. You can expand this by asking the question. How and why do these same swallows fly 7,000 km across the world to South Africa, and have the ability to come back to the same nest site in our area each year? They cross seas, mountains, deserts and other hostile terrain and yet have the ability to navigate so precisely. I think it’s astonishing, one of the great feats of the natural world.