TWIG (Part of East Meon Nature), led by Stuart Martin, completed their first project yesterday. They planted a broad hedgerow using native British species on the north side of the village green. As it develops it will provide a habitat for many birds, insects and other animals, as well as enhancing the environment. The South Downs National Park kindly supplied the funding for this work.
After a record breaking hot summer, and the Coombe Road pond drying out completely the winterbourne started flowing yesterday 02/11/22. We have been very worried that the toads and newts that use the pond for breeding would have nowhere to go! The autumn heavy rains have saved the day.
This autumn is throwing up a number of interesting fungi. I spotted this one, Cauliflower Fungus (sparassis crispa), yesterday. Apparently it is edible when fresh and white, but it gets tough an indigestible when it gets to this orange/yellow colour.
I found this very colourful pale tussock moth larva in the Parish this week. Autumn is a good time of year to spot exotic looking larva.
It has been a difficult last half of the summer this year for butterflies. Most of the nectar plants have been dried out by the very high temperatures and lack of rain. Pamela Peacock managed to catch this freshly hatched red admiral recently, on what looks like ivy.
Autumn in August! There is often a small leaf fall at this time, but this is the earliest time of a major leaf fall I can remember since 1976.
As the wild flowers grow on the Pavilion stones, they are starting to attract various insect life. The attached picture shows seven spotted ladybirds making inroads into this area. Picture by Sigi Goolden.
The picture shows a clump of harebells (campanula rotundifolia), also known as fairy bells. They are to be found on the upper part of the track that goes from South Farm to the South Downs Way on Hyden Hill. In Scotland harebells are known as ‘bluebells’ and bluebells are known as wild hyacinths, just to confuse us.
With the continuing hot and dry weather it has been a very good year for the wonderful silver-washed fritillary butterfly in East Meon, amongst many others butterfly species. This is a large and very decorative butterfly with a graceful swooping flight. This year they have been spotted in Hen Wood, Duncombe Wood, and Hyden Hill.
As the weather warms and their food plants mature the local butterfly numbers are steadily increasing. EM Nature runs a regular butterfly transit (walk) that reports sitings to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, from 1 April to the end of September. Today, June 30, marbled whites (46) and ringlets (50) are doing particularly well.