Dog Days

It was gloriously sunny today, far too hot for working in the garden (though Keith manfully tried). Instead, Lyra and I took ourselves for a long meandering walk – so long indeed that it was interrupted by a phone call to check we had not fallen prey to some unknown peril. As ever, I was clicking away with the camera and when editing out all the wonky bits later I found a cache of dog walk pictures I had yet to inflict on an unsuspecting public. So here is July, measured in dog walks.

Flower of the season has definitely been woundwort. It has loved the on and off damp weather. Unlike the usual timid daggers peeking out of the undergrowth, there have been tall quivers of purple spears rising above the long grass by the riverside. Meadowsweet has also been in its element, loving the damp ditches. Mum and I harvested a bagful of the fluffy, honey smelling heads from the back lane a few weeks ago and I then sweltered uncomfortably over the Aga making bottling syrup. (There are now seven jars of bottled blackcurrants in the pantry and two big bottles of syrup just waiting for me to pick the green gooseberries (I am still psyching myself up – it is a very prickly job and I was positively perforated getting some red ones for the freezer)). My favourite summer flower though has always been cranesbill, or thunderbells as we used to call them as children (perhaps July, when they bloom, was always thundery in Selkirk – I certainly remember a few soakings from out of the blue storms on summer evening walks). There’s an intense softness to their wide eyed, guileless, flowers. It seems that the bees agree with me on this.

I have been reading that butterfly numbers are down this year all over. I’ve certainly seen fewer of the red admirals and peacocks, but it’s early yet. The “white yins” though seem to be holding up well. When Lyra plummeted down the bank for her first dook of the walk today, a cloud of maybe twenty flew up from the grass on the bank. I’ve seen a fair few ringlets and meadow browns as well. Perhaps it is only the fancy fellows that have struggled. This year’s bug discovery was the banded demoiselle, a rather swanky large damsel fly with black silk stocking wings. (When in flight it looks like one of those narrow black ties that were quite the thing with wing collar shirts in the 90s.) I first spotted one down by the river in Norham, but frustratingly too far away to get a shot. However, I came across quite a few on the riverside in Coldstream today and Lyra staged a diversion, enabling me to sneak up. Looks like they feed on rush flowers.

The river is awash with tiny baggie minnows at the moment and the spalooshes and flashes of white mid stream suggest that there are some big’uns in there for the patient angler. Most patient of all is the grey heron. I saw a huge one one today moving up stream. It squawked as it landed in a gawky, broken umbrella movement – all flaps and angles. And then it disappeared completely into stillness. I had to stare for a good minute to see the beady eye in the bleached stick of driftwood under a willow. There was a fisherman in waders lumbering down the bank maybe 20 yards downstream from the silent sentinel. He had no chance….