Drizzle

Wednesday dawned with the kind of leaden skies and grey drizzle that makes you want to stay under the duvet all day. But windless mornings with fine drizzle can work magic in meadows.

We are only a week or so away from the main period of haymaking in Weardale and Teesdale and the meadow grasses are in full flower. When that coincides with drizzly, foggy weather and there is not a breath of wind every grass floret catches a jewel of water and every grass stem is laden with rows of water droplets. One puff of wind and the effect would be ruined, but for a short time it is exquisite.

Definitely worth getting out of bed for!

After the Deluge .....

It was what my granny used to call "a clearing-up" shower. 

The ferocity of the rain hammering on the car roof drowned out our conversation, the road was awash and the windscreen wipers struggled to cope with the deluge. We were forced to pull over and park. We contemplated turning around and heading for home. 

But, as is often the way with the trailing clouds in a band of rain passing overhead during a depression, the short, intensive downpour suddenly slackened ....... and then stopped. Within a few minutes the sound of bird calls was added to the sound of water trickling down drains. A break in the clouds appeared, then a small patch of blue sky, then sunshine. 

We got out and walked.

The air was still cold and the vegetation was festooned with raindrops.

A few butterflies, sheltering in the undergrowth, cautiously opened their wings.

Somehow this skipper had survived unscathed, even though raindrops still clung to the harebell where it had taken refuge.

Bumblebees began to return to operating temperature in the sun, but this one was still so chilled that all it could do was raise a leg in self-defence ...

... but the butterflies were soon feeding on the devil's bit scabious flowers again ...

... in competition with hoverflies ......

... all seeking nectar supplies to restore their energy levels.

Within half an hour the breeze had shaken most of the water from the leaves and this caterpillar returned to feeding on nettle foliage ...

... where a cranefly sunbathed ......

.... and finally the bumblebees got busy again on the bramble blossom, which is very late after this soggy summer. They'd better get busy.......... 

........... because autumn is just around the corner, and the thistles are already releasing clouds of thistledown.

Arranging any kind of outdoor event in the British summer can be a nightmare, but our fast-changing weather patterns provide naturalists with some of their most memorable moments.

All pictures taken along the disused railway line between Romaldkirk and Cotherstone in Teesdale, last Wednesday, 29th. August.

The Year of the Slug?

I hadn't really realised what an amazing summer this must be if you happen to be a slug, until we went out for a walk after heavy rain a couple of days ago. The footpath was covered with these slimy molluscs, but so too were the flower umbels of hogweed. Wet weather seems to encourage slugs to climb tall flower stems to feed on petals and pollen. Why do they bother, when there is so much food at ground level?

This rather colourful local variety of Arion ater, with an orange skirt, had climbed a dandelion stem to feed on the florets.

Meanwhile, the same rain storms have done serious damage to pollinating bees. This bumblebee was so saturated by rain that it was diffcult to decide what species it might be.

What happens when a raindrop, travelling at terminal velocity, hits a butterfly .....?

I've never seen an insect actually hit by a raindrop but I did once read an eyewitness account (of dubious reliability) of such a collision with a bumblebee in flight, which supposedly killed the bee. It came to mind yesterday as a dark rain cloud slid over the sun while I was photographing this newly-minted female orange tip butterfly  visiting bluebells.

Almost immediately the butterfly folded its wings as completely as possible, assumed a vertical position on a bluebell infloresence and even aligned its antennae tightly in line with its body axis - all of which presented the smallest possible target for a falling raindrop. I wonder if this instinctive behaviour is triggered by the sudden drop in light level and temperature that's characteristic of an approaching shower on a spring day? Many insects crawl away under leaves during rain showers but orange tips always seem to roost in the open. I've often found dew-covered specimens early in the morning.

As soon as the sudden and very heavy shower had passed I went out to take a look and found the butterfly unharmed..... hard to believe that it hadn't been knocked off its perch by the downpour!