Sorry to put a dampener on summer but Nature’s telling us autumn’s already here
What has happened to our summer? It’s august — the month most associated with summer holidays — and yet the weather is wet, windy and autumnal.
But is this just typical British weather or are the seasons really starting to shift? and if so, can autumn already be under way?
Certainly, weather forecasters are warning that august will see the ‘worst two weeks of weather’ of the summer. Met Office forecaster Emma Salter said: ‘It’s a lot cooler than usual for this time of year.’
already, as I walk around my local patch in Somerset, I see signs of seasonal change — suggesting autumn is coming early.
Ripe, juicy blackberries cling invitingly to brambles, while overhead, swifts scythe through the sky as they head south to africa. On July 2, I found a rare red-backed shrike — an autumn migrant from Scandinavia that usually turns up in Britain in late august or September.
Indeed, virtually everything seems to have been significantly accelerated this year.
For instance, all over the southern half of Britain, there have been reports of summer butterflies emerging far earlier than usual.
In 2013, we saw one of the latest springs ever, with most creatures emerging or starting to breed at least a fortnight after the norm. Since then, we have seen early springs, wet summers, dry autumns and mild winters — all very disturbing to those of us who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies when we had more rigid seasons, or ‘proper weather’.
Many scientists believe our seasons are indeed getting more and more unpredictable, as a result of global climate change.
the evidence comes partly from a dedicated cohort of amateur wildlife watchers. Each year, they record the dates of various seasonal events such as the first blackberry or the last departing swallow, on the Woodland trust’s ‘Nature’s Calendar’ website.
Using this data, a report last year in the prestigious scientific journal Nature made a clear link between changes in temperature and the timing of seasonal events such as the flowering of plants, the emergence of butterflies and the ripening of berries and fruits.
So, what’s been happening this spring and summer so far?
BLACKBERRIES AND SLOES
IN THE Midlands, Philippa Bradley Vigor of the Warwickshire Wildlife trust has noticed that blackberries have ripened very early — she’s been able to pick good numbers for a fortnight.
the brambles at the bottom of my garden are also starting to bear fruit, though I’ll need some strong gardening gloves to fight my way through the tangled mass of thorns to reach them.
and sloes — which I harvest to make sloe gin in late august or September — are now ripening along our local hedgerow.
HORNET HOVERFLIES
PAUL HETHERINGTON, of the invertebrate conservation charity Buglife, reports earlier than usual sightings of one of our largest and most striking flies, the hornet hoverfly. as its name suggests, this looks remarkably like the fearsome, stinging hornet.
however, it is harmless — the yellow and black colouring sometimes means that is confused with a wasp, but the marking simply deters predators.
hornet hoverflies first colonised the UK during World War II, and have spread north as far as Cheshire. look out for them buzzing around the flowerbeds in your garden.
ROADSIDE PLANTS
that classic of rural England, cow parsley — or as my grandmother used to call it, Queen anne’s lace — appeared much earlier than usual this year, with the peak flowering in May, rather than June.
Red valerian, an attractive plant whose reddish- mauve flowers always remind me of a laura ashley fabric design, also came into bloom in late spring, rather than early summer.
SLUGS AND SNAILS
EXPERTS also report that slugs and snails have enjoyed a bumper year so far, due to two factors: the mild winter, which meant that instead of hibernating, they kept on feeding and breeding; and the warm and wet spring and summer, encouraging them to hatch early.
gardeners are now praying — against hope! — for a dry august to help stop the spread of these ravenous creatures, such as the one pictured below . . .
RARE SEABIRDS
SPECIES such as Wilson’s storm petrel and the great shearwater have already been seen for some time in the Western approaches off the South-West of Britain.
these birds breed in the South atlantic, and usually pass by Britain and Ireland during august and September. the early sightings are due to autumnal-type weather systems sweeping across the atlantic, which bring these elusive ocean voyagers closer to our coasts.
HAY MEADOWS
YELLOW rattle (pictured above), — a beautiful, semi-parasitic hay meadow plant considered to be a pest by farmers because it feeds off the nutrients in grass roots — usually comes into flower at the end of May. But according to the wildflower conservation charity Plantlife, blooms appeared as early as april 22, and all that was left by June 11 across the country were seedheads. (they usually stay in flower until the start of July). this appears to have set the pattern for the whole summer, with the early June heatwave triggering a rush of colour in our countryside, as many wildflowers came into bloom at once.
BUTTERFLIES
BUTTERFLY Conservation has observed that two common summer butterflies — the meadow brown and the smaller, orange-winged gatekeeper ( pictured above), — emerged a week or so earlier than usual.
the first broods of red admirals have joined them. these butterflies’ parents migrated here from Spain or North africa in May and laid their eggs, which have already pupated and hatched into smart black, white and red adults.
good news for gardeners, though: the three ‘cabbage white’ species, which can destroy plants such as brassicas overnight, are well down in numbers this year.
In Somerset, the large blue butterfly season is long gone. habitually, they stay around well into July, but this year, the last sighting was on July 10 — having first appeared on May 24, ten days earlier than average. according to Richard Fox at Butterfly Conservation, other rarities — including black and brown hair-streaks, and our only high- altitude specialist, the mountain ringlet — emerged earlier than at any time since the turn of the millennium. But the prize goes to the purple emperor, whose first sighting on June 11 was, according to National trust butterfly guru Matthew Oates, the earliest since 1893!
MIGRANT BIRDS
THE British trust for Ornithology reports that three of its satellite-tracked cuckoos that left their eggs (in other birds’ nests, of course) in the UK, have already crossed the Sahara Desert on their way south to spend the winter in West africa, and two others are half way across.
Cuckoos usually leave the UK in late June or early July, but this year, one of the tagged birds was identified crossing the English Channel in the first week of June, a few weeks after it arrived here.
Swifts are also heading south early in good numbers — and, unlike the night-migrant cuckoos, they travel by day, so are easy to spot as they fly.
Most significantly, autumn migrants from the far north are already dropping into coastal marshes and mudflats. I saw a spotted redshank, en route from Scandinavia to africa, on the Somerset coast as early as July 2.
ORCHIDS
PLANTLIFE’S botanical specialist trevor Dines recalls that, when he was a child, the early purple orchids on the farm where he grew up would be in flower on his birthday: in the middle of May. this year, more than four decades later, the first bloomed on april 16.
Other orchid species have also flowered earlier than usual, especially in southern England, thanks to warm, wet weather.
To CONTRIBUTE to the nature’s calendar survey, go to woodlandtrust.org.uk