I’ve been meaning to blog for some time (it’s not like to me to miss commentating on a “super moon”, a solstice, the beginning of summer, “midsummer’s day” amongst other things), but.... well.... ach, you know.

Yes-indeedy… Since I last put sausage-fingers to QWERTY keyboard, we have indeed had a “super moon” and a solstice, the beginning of (meteorological) summer on the 1^st June and (traditional) “midsummer’s day on the 21^st June. Summer is getting shorter and shorter at only 42 days long these days eh? The weird thing is that strictly speaking -summer began on the 21^st of June as well as it being midsummer’s day on the same day. Confused? Yep. Me too.

I wasn’t convinced by the “super moon” to be honest – it allegedly appeared to be noticeably brighter and larger than most full moons (as it was as close to us in orbit terms as it will be until next August), but I had a peep at it on “super moon night” and it looked pretty darned normal to little-old-me.

So...  with Glastonbury starting today and me NOT there this year (of all years…. when the Stones are playing) … where have I been and what have I seen on my recent wanderings?

It’s fair to say summer has well and truly arrived in the last few weeks.

Then left again.

Then arrived once more.

Then left.

You get the picture ...I know.

Anna and I went up the river, well.... the canal really..... to look for hobbies on one of the better days in the last month. Hobbies for those that dont know are pretty little falcons with a brick red undercarriage, here during the summer in good numbers. These dashing birds like to catch dragonflies and sometimes even hirundines and swifts.  We managed to see one, picking off mayflies I think, rather than odonates – as summer does seem to be a few weeks late this year after a cold end to spring.

The local badgers that live a mile from our house in a new housing estate (yes... you read that right) are doing fine it seems, ‘though unlike last year when two sows in the group produced cubs (uncommon – it’s normally the dominant sow only that produces young), it seems like there are no cubs this year. They’ve quite obviously heard about the cull and thought to themselves “why bother” this year.

The local little owls seem to have taken over their old nest box again – I’ve not been up to see them as much as last year, but I would expect to see young owlets fledge soon, if I do return to see how they’re getting on.

The barn owl pair are shacked up in their hollow tree – again, I’d expect to see (or more probably, hear) the hissing young if and when I get up to the farm to check on their progress.

We have a blackbird’s nest in the garden which I have a wee Handykam camera trained on 24/7 – once again in a completely daft spot, low down in the poplar tree. The hen bird has laid four eggs over the last four days, but because the nest is very vulnerable to cats, I’ve taken the desperate measure of wrapping the trunk of the tree in tin foil. I’m assured cats don’t like tin-foil....

We have swifts regularly checking out the house at dawn and dusk (attracted by my swift call I’m sure) but as yet, no bird has investigated either of the nest spaces. I will need to build a final space or two during the winter to ensure ensnarement next year!

The garden has certainly come to life – the lawn-left-to-meadow has produced copious amounts of creeping buttercup flowers as well as field clover, forget-me-not, heal-all, salad burnet, poppies, white campion and birds-foot trefoil. The yellow loosestrife has flowered also – although I’ve still to see its bee of choice – Macropsis europaea grab the floral oils from within the hundreds of bright yellow, plasticky-looking flowers.

It won’t be long before all the invasive Canadian goldenrod has flowered – a weed really – but the bees flock to it, so I’ll leave it in the ground for now – where it can join the foxgloves we have planted.

Talking of bees, the bee hotels have been well received in the garden, with red and blue mason bees all taking up residence – and we clearly have a good-sized tree bumblebee (B.hypnorum) nest in the attic, under the eaves.

I’ve run the moth trap more this month than in the whole of last year, but numbers of moths (and spp. of moths indeed), have been pretty low.

There have been only two or three real moth highlights – a poplar kitten (see below) and two hawk-moths.

Of the hawk-moths, firstly (see below), I managed to trap a great big (grey) poplar hawk-moth (no great surprise there as our garden must reek of poplar “juice”)

but then, only a couple of nights ago – I trapped one of the most spectacular moths in Britain – a small elephant hawk-moth – Deilephila porcellus. (see below).

Much smaller  than its more common cousin, the elephant hawk-moth, the small elephant hawk-moth is even more shocking pink if that is possible  - you’d swear it was a tropical moth if you didn’t know any better.

The small elephant hawk-moth comes to honeysuckle, tobacco flowers and red valerian very often – but we only have a tiny amount of white valerian in the garden, so this was a very unexpected moth for me.

This moth, rather like its larger cousin, has a thick, fleshy larval stage (caterpillar) that looks like it has two eyes and a pig’s snout which is in fact a retractable head. This “snout” also looks like an elephant’s trunk – which is why these electric pink moths are named after elephants – it’s their caterpillar then, that we refer to as being elephantine – not the adult moth.

Likewise, as I’ve alluded to above, the end of the caterpillar also looks a little like a little pig’s snout (complete with eyes) – and this is the root for the small elephant hawk moth’s scientific name of Deilephila porcellus.

Deile – dusk or the evening (Greek)

Phileo – To love (Greek)

Porcellus – piglet (Greek)

Thus, the small elephant hawk-moth’s scientific name quite literally means the “dusk-loving piglet” – the adults do tend to fly at dusk, like their hummingbird hawkmoth cousins.

Incidentally – the elephant hawkmoth itself (Deilephila elpenor rather Deilephila porcellus above) has a specific name derived from “Elpenor”, one of Odysseus’ sailors, who was turned into a swine by the magical nymph “Circe”. You can begin to see then I’m sure, that whilst we call these pink moths “elephant” hawkmoths, they were originally likened to “pigs” rather than elephants.

I think I prefer the pig comparison myself, although when you’ve seen these pink elephants, you might be forgiven for thinking you’d drunkenly hallucinated, so lurid in colour are they.

Whilst I’m rambling drunkenly on about impressive insects, it’s also nice to see plenty of impressive beetles in the garden this summer – plenty of cockchafers are humming about the garden (and dropping into the moth trap most nights), I’ve caught sight of a huge metallic-green rose chafer fly past the house in a the blue sky, we have a couple of very impressive golden, lesser water beetles in the flourishing pond and a week or so ago, in the humidity before the solstice, I was lucky enough to hear and see a couple of ma-hu-sive male stag beetles helicopter noisily through the garden in the gloom. We have a small colony of these fearsome-looking beasties in a partially buried, rotting eucalyptus trunk in the garden, so it’s nice to know our hens haven’t dug up their grubs on their free-ranging scrabblings through the flower beds.

Finally it was nice to see my first large odonate the other day – a large blue male emperor dragonfly patrolling the flood meadows near my Thames-side office. I hope that we get a few hawkers and chasers in our new (this year) garden pond soon....

Well....I’m sure there is plenty more to tell, but I’ve written enough for now. We have just over 5 weeks before all the swifts start to pack up and leave for the Congo – I hear there is an “Azores high” weather system building in the eastern Atlantic and there are plenty of more things to look out for this summer.

I feel a (heathland) nightjar pilgrimage coming on you know....

Have a great July, grapple fans - & make the most of it eh?