Our churchyard in JULY

The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven’.

The season for butterflies is mostly only too short. After emerging from their chrysalis as an adult, most individuals only have a few weeks – days even in some cases – in which to mate and lay their eggs, following which they die. Cold, wet springs such as we’ve had this year can seriously knock their population numbers, especially when this follows a number of other cold wet springs like the last four years.

How welcome then to find in the meadow a Ringlet – the first time for this butterfly. This has large, beautiful eye spots on dark, velvety chocolate brown wings: the dark colour allows it to warm up and fly in weather that keeps paler butterflies hunkered down in the undergrowth. My record in the middle of June marks one of the earliest emergences of this butterfly in recent years. It can be seen on the wing from now to the end of August.

At the other end of the scale is the Meadow Brown, one of our commonest species. It is a paler colour than the Ringlet: at rest, the orange colour on the underside of the wings can be seen. It has been a regular visitor to the churchyard for a number of years now. It will continue flying till the end of September.

Yet more signs of competition among the bees. A Bee is nectaring on the purple flowers of the knapweed. Cuckoo Bumble Bees are incapable of transporting pollen on their hind legs. Females take over the nests of other species, subduing or killing the resident queen and then using the resident workers to forage and tend their own brood. The host of this species is the Buff-tailed Bumble Bee: both are common throughout Sussex. And there are also honeybees, feeding on the yellow flowers of Creeping Cinquefoil.

And finally… We will be cutting and raking the grass towards the end of August. This is all done by a team of volunteers.

If you’d like to join us, you will be very welcome: please do get in touch. I will coordinate possible dates in due course.

Nigel.symington@gmail.com