Sunday 30th August, 2015
At last I am back to my routine blogging week - starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday (PS I wrote that too soon. I didn't realise that it would end up being an eight day week). For the second week in succession, the week started with some butterfly excitement. The first interesting event was the first sighting of a wall brown in the back garden. It perched very obligingly on a trailing tormentil flower and waited until I fetched the camera and took some photos!
Later there was another first sighting of the season. I was carrying a muck bucket of ferns down from the top of the garden and saw a holly blue near the old senecio plant. It had disappeared by the time I returned with the camera but I am confident about my identification. I saw the bright blue of the upper side of its wings as it fluttered past, and the distinctive under side of the wings - pale silvery blue with tiny black dots - when it settled on a flower with its wings in an upright position.
I waited for some time to see whether the holly blue would return. There was no sign of it but a white butterfly flew overhead and I waited to see whether it would settle. I haven't seen either of the "cabbage whites" yet this year. Just as the white was about to settle on the oregano flowers a meadow brown arrived and chased it into the next door garden. I have never associated butterflies with aggression but the meadow browns can be quite fierce.
Then there was another bit of drama. A sparrowhawk swooped down from the plantation and crash landed in the hawthorns where the little birds like to perch and enjoy the morning sun. I shouted at it and it flew off. It didn't appear to have a victim in its talons so it must have missed its intended prey. The poor little birds lead a dangerous existence with threats from raptors above and cats below. I should admit that I am not confident about identifying hawks and am assuming that it was a sparrowhawk because they are the most common and are often seen in the glen.
After finishing my session of fern cutting, I checked for butterflies again. There was nothing of interest in the back garden, just meadow browns and a speckled wood. Next I checked the mauve buddleia by the garage. I was delighted to see that the painted lady had returned and this time it had its wings nicely spread.
While I was taking photographs I counted four small tortoiseshells, three painted ladies, two peacocks, two red admirals and a comma - all feeding on their favourite shrub.
On Monday morning we were distracted by a dishwasher panic. Our two and a half year old dishwasher refused to wash the dishes on Sunday and claimed that it had an :05 error. According to the manual this indicated a power module failure and the advice was to turn off the power switch and water and phone for a technician.
Fortunately the shop where we bought the dishwasher didn't do repairs and there was no reply when Tim phoned the number of a repairman which they gave him. That doesn't sound fortunate, but it gave me time to search for information on the internet . . . trying to decide whether it was better to opt for an expensive repair, buy a new appliance or just wash the dishes by hand. I found some advice on a repair forum which gave suggestions for less serious error messages and I decided to have a bash. If our DW was already dead then I couldn't do any more damage. First I checked for any water that hadn't drained from the machine. There was only about half a cup so that probably wasn't the problem. Then I tried pressing the reset button for three seconds. The display changed and showed 1 minute of the program remaining. So I tried resetting again and this time the display cleared. I pressed the start button and it started. Then it spent a couple of hours washing an empty load because I was too scared to interrupt its cycle and risk another error message. Now it is working normally again - fingers crossed. I don't know why it thought it was terminally ill. Do other dishwashers also suffer from hypochondria?
It was a grey, overcast morning and there was even a slight sprinkling of rain although it was supposed to be dry. There didn't seem much point in mowing until the grass had dried out so I trimmed some more ferns instead. When the sun eventually came out the butterflies returned. First there was a small white butterfly on the wildflower bank - a first sighting. I think it is a small white (Pieris rapae) rather than a large white because of the paler wing markings. It is also probably a male because the females have more forewing spotting.
About midday I saw a little woodmouse near the hawthorns in the back garden. I spotted it again later, scampering across the grass between the white buddleia and the wildflower bank. It reminded me about finding a little body under the rowan a few days ago. The murderous moggies had struck again. I grieved for the little dead mouse but almost immediately noticed two large slugs and murdered them without a second thought. This made me wonder why we react differently to various species. Is it just that I see the slugs as a threat to my plants or is it more basic? Do we empathise more with species which are closer to us genetically? It is often difficult to distinguish between instinct and rational or learned behaviour.
After I had finished my gardening session, I went down to check on the mauve buddleia again. It was alive with colourful butterflies. I didn't even try to count them. The most interesting - and most frustrating - was a second sighting of the little holly blue. It settled briefly on one of the lower flowers - in the worst possible place for a photograph. The surrounding foliage made it difficult to focus and the sunlight reflecting off the pale under side of the wing washed out the detail. I only got one photo and it was very disappointing. But I did get plenty of photos of the various nymphalids. This is the age of celebrity culture and these are definitely the celebrities of the Manx insect world with their brilliant colours. The contrast between the glowing colours of the upper side of their wings and the camouflage colours of the under side of the wing is interesting.
Two views of a small tortoiseshell.
The butterflies with the darkest underwings are the peacocks. This one - sitting on the pale flower buds of the sedum spectabile - isn't very well camouflaged.
I learned something new about butterflies. They may look as though they just flap around in a rather haphazard way but they have very impressive acceleration from a standing start. I saw a peacock sunbathing on the stone under the bird feeder and went out for a closer look. It had its wings folded upright and I decided to disturb it so that I could check its identity. It took off so fast that my eyes couldn't focus on it in time to see the upper side of its wings. Later I saw a red admiral on the wall under the bird feeder. Suddenly a cat emerged from the raspberries and launched itself at the butterfly. I swear that butterfly took off so fast that it was about a yard away by the time the cat landed.
I was still feeling rather philosophical and my thoughts turned from the beauty of nature to the nature of beauty. Why do we find bright colours beautiful? Is it because they indicate health? Are they useful indicators when choosing food, or even a mate? We use colour in an attempt to make ourselves more 'attractive'. We think we belong to a higher species and are amused by the amazing courtship displays of the birds of paradise but we are not so different. Young, and not so young, humans paint their faces and wear bright clothes . . . and perform silly dances too. It is not just "going out and having fun" . . . it is a courtship display. We have more in common with other species than we like to admit.
Tuesday started with a trip to deliver a carload of ferns to the tip and a visit to the supermarket. Then I pottered around waiting for the grass to dry before starting the mowing. I took yet more butterfly photos but they are all rather similar to the ones I took earlier in the week.
Then I started mowing the back lawn, pausing every now and again to pull out some weeds or cut back a few old foxglove stems. I didn't want to finish the back too quickly because the shadier front lawn needed time to dry out. I miscalculated. The rain which was forecast for the evening arrived early in the afternoon - before I finished mowing the back garden. So I had to put off the rest if the mowing for another day. I seem to have done very little so far this week apart from photographing butterflies and waiting for grass to dry.
Wednesday started with heavy rain but the clouds blew away to the north and had almost disappeared by ten o'clock.
I cut back the ferns at the end of the ditch near the gate and then decided that the grass was dry enough to finish mowing. More clouds arrived, some looked threatening, but it didn't quite rain. During the sunny spells the butterflies were out and about again. The big five (red admirals, peacocks, small tortoiseshells, commas and painted ladies) were taking advantage of the buddleia nectar again. Unlike the meadow browns, they are prepared to share flowers.
We have had 4 1/2 inches (115cms) of rain so far during August. The Japanese anemones are still flowering profusely and the hydrangeas are looking good. Some of the prettier late summer weeds have also enjoyed the damp summer. The wild angelica is so lovely it should really be a recognised garden flower.
It attracts all sorts of weird and wonderful little insects - even a few tiny ants. I wonder whether they like the pollen or nectar - or, maybe, they are thinking of starting an aphid farm.
I thought that Gentle Hermione might produce the last rose of summer but then I found that the first bud on one of the Cecile Brunner cuttings that I planted in spring had won that honour.
On Thursday I finished the ditch ferns. It was not much fun as it involved crawling under a couple of shrubs which suddenly doubled their size after some nearby trees were cut down. Then I started on the ferns growing on the nearly vertical bank above the ditch at the top of the garden.
The days are shortening more rapidly now as we approach the equinox and sunrise was at twenty past six this morning. I was up in time to capture some pink tinged clouds.
Saturday was the first race day of the Manx Grand Prix. It was time to take advantage of the road closure and spend a couple of hours trimming the hedge by the road. I had planned to finish this post for the blog in the afternoon but I was feeling punch drunk after the second round of my fight with the dishwasher. After working perfectly for a few days, it suddenly went on strike again yesterday morning.
This time it complained about a different error code (:18) before reverting to :05 again. The first error code referred to water level problems so I removed the inlet hose, cleaned the in-line filters, cleaned all the filters inside the machine and checked the waste water pump. After that it started OK but stopped during the cycle. So I reset it and tried it on a shorter cycle . . . and it grudgingly agreed to wash the dishes. I only run the dishwasher every two day so the next round of the big fight will take place tomorrow. I think the DW is beating me on points at present. I may have to get a technician in after the Manx Grand Prix ends or this blog is going to turn into a diary of a mad housewife instead of just being the diary of a mad gardener.
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