Bimonthly Weather Report March April 2011

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March began cold.  The beautiful early flowering St. John's Plum tree did not flower until March 8th.  This wild tree whose fruit in midsummer makes the most excellent jam is often in flower in February (19th February in 2008).

Other flowers were also late - daffodils 14th March, celandines 18 March.  These dates represent a fairly full flowering.  

Our last ground frost was March 20th.

The cuckoo was heard on March 16th.

But then at the very end of March the temperatures rose significantly.

Summer temperatures came in the first week of April. 

the first Orchis morio was seen on April 3rd.

The 6th April we saw the butterflies -Scarce Swallowtail and Orange tip.

The hoopoe was heard on April 1st.  The nightingale on April 25th. It was a few days earlier heard at Lavercantière about 10 km away.

But April saw the beginning of a drought.  Only 4 mm. of rain fell in the month.

It was the driest and warmest April in the last few years.  

April 2010 rainfall was 13 max temp. 19.6 ; in 2009 -168 mm. and 16.2 degrees.

Our rainwater reservoir is in full use for watering the flower crop and our vegetables.

Bimonthly Weather Report

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January was decidedly warmer than those of 2009 and 2010.

Min temps. in order 2.06, 0.58, and this year 2.87

Max temps. 7.23, 4.46, and 8.23

February continued similarly

Min temps. 3.87, 1.93 and 4.14

Max temps. 10.08, 7.96, and 11.07

However the numbers of night frosts showed no trend.  2010 had more frosts.  In 2011 no snow fell in January/February.

Nature..

The 1st Viola odorata  was in flower on the 1st January. The 1st snowdrop on the 16th January (as in 2009 and 2008)  I was glad to see the local wild snowdrops which I transplanted to the edge of our lower woodland produced 8 flowers on February 7th (3 in 2010 on February 19th).  It is always several degrees colder in the valley bottom.  

Celandines in flower on 28th February.

On the 25th February a skein  of about 50 Cranes flew North-East (1st March in 2010).  

A Feather Beetle

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Searching a sample of leaf litter which had accumulated in a ditch beneath oak trees, I found this odd little beast.

Its name takes up more room than the animal. It is less than one millimetre in length and you can only make out its structure with a microscope.

You cannot make out the details of the body because it is too opaque for the microscope. You may make out enough of the shape to see that it is an insect.

The remarkable structure is the great feathery excrescence at the end of the body. The books say that this represents  its wings. There are a large number of ‘cilia’ projecting from each side of the two central axes. These 'cilia' appear to be hollow. Each cilium has fine projections along the length.

What can be their function? I discover in a Russian journal [Zoologičeskij žurnal 2008, vol 87 pp 181-188] that A.A. Polilov has examined the structure of these beetles, but little more is known. He found that many internal organs are severely reduced (even allowing for the minute size). He says..(I quote) ..”The most important among them are the following: the absence of midgut muscles, reduction of two malpighian tubules (i.e. the nitrogenous excretory organs), the decrease in the number of abdominal stigmas (i.e. breathing pores), the strong reduction of the tracheal system (respiratory system), the absence of the heart, reduction of the circulatory system …”. He also lists reduction of the nervous system.

This information may help us to surmise what the function is. The ‘cilia’ appear to be hollow and empty.  It would seem unlikely that the cilia replace the excretory system. We know that the respiratory system of breathing pores and the air tubes (the tracheae) are reduced. Is it not likely that these ‘feathers’ are in fact the breathing system of this minute insect, and that gaseous exchange occurs across their relatively immense surface?

Then we might conjecture on the evolution of these creatures. Could it be that these ‘feathers’ are most effective under water? Is it that the beetles only live in waterlogged conditions or were their ancestors water living beetles?

It is said to be found in most regions of Europe and beyond into Asia.

Bimonthly Weather Report November-December 2010

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November & December 2010

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Compared with 2009 the average temperatures for both months were about 2 degrees lower in 2010.   There was about 10 mm less of rain in both months than in 2009.
This in contrast to the feeling that one had that we had more snow in December 2010, but the total amount was not measured. It was nevertheless very likely so. Snow fell  on November 27th (5 cm), which seems to be unusual.


About six Lapwings were seen nearby on the 3rd of December, just after the first fall of snow from the 27th November to the 2nd December.  We have only seen Lapwings once before, also following a cold spell.  
Cranes were seen flying south on November 2nd and again on December 13th.  That makes three southerly passages of cranes this autumn. (The other was October 11th)

LITTLE KNOWN MINTS

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The odour of mint evokes roast lamb and Sunday lunch.  Mint tea in the Arab desert lands is one of the most refreshing of drinks. Kendal Mint cake refreshes the weary hill walker.  The plant illustrated here has the strongest and most beautiful minty odour of any though it is not strictly speaking a mint at all.  If you live in the very north or east of France, or in parts of Provence you may not find it.  In England it exists on the North Downs and around the coasts of Cornwall. This plant is the calamint (from the Greek Kala = excellent or beautiful plus mint). 

In the 13^th century a  herbalist who came from the town where I now live – Bernard de Gourdon recognised the value of this plant. The virtue of all mints in aiding digestion continues in the fashion of ‘after-eight mints’.  Three hundred years later it was incorporated  in a concoction of herbs used as a poultice to aid the cure of gunshot wounds – the ‘arquebusade’ .  

The form of the flower is different from that of the true mints in that each flower has two lips and they are gathered in rather loose groups.  In the true mints there are four small and somewhat equally sized petals arranged in dense groups or spikes.   You can see this in the mint called Pennyroyal, the other photo.  Again, except for the very north of France it is found everywhere on calcareous land.  In Britain it has become quite rare having disappeared from  most of its erstwhile localities.   It also has a powerful smell and was famed for deterring fleas from the bedding.  It is very likely that the Romans gave it the name of ‘pulegium’ for this reason (pulex = flea).  The name Penny Royal, used since the middle ages, is derived from the early French ‘puliol–réal’ which possibly means the royal flea killer! It also indicates that its medicinal virtues were known amongst the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. In French its name remains la menthe pouliot.

In fields near my home, the sheep avoid the penny-royal. Possibly the minty smell generally repels the insect predators, for these plants seem to be fairly free from such attack.

Both of these species flower late into autumn.  Other species of mint are more common and more spectacular; Apple mint, Pepper Mint (a hybrid of the next two), Water mint, and the most useful Spear mint which everyone should cultivate for mint tea and famously mint sauce, a desirable British addition to be encouraged in the French cuisine.

Pennyroyal Recipe for a weary stomach:-  It is a worthwhile tisane.  Place 30 grams (1 oz.) of the herb in a half litre of boiling water.  Add honey to taste and drink warm.

Bimonthly Weather Report September October 2010

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Though the temperature in October was on average 3 degrees below that of last year, there were no ground frosts.  Last year there were several. However we live on a hill and those days where the overnight air temperature was below 2 degrees (3 times) would have seen frost in the valleys. Nevertheless we had last year a minus figure once.  This year none were below 2. 
Our first wood fire was lit on October 6th - it seems to get earlier each year!
Although rainfall was above last year, the ground still seems dryish.  The mushrooms and toadstool appearances were very poor.  A friend nevertheless showed me a good stand of Caesar's Mushroom - Amanita cesarea.  This is an excellent edible mushroom.  It is closely related to the poisonous death cap and fly agaric, but recognisable by its yellow stems contrasting with its alarming orange-red cap. It was growing with heaths on acid soil under pubescent oaks.
Cranes flew south on October 11th and November 2nd (next report).  It was odd that these flights were so far apart!

Sceliphron - Potter Wasp

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 Any house owner would be surprised by a row of tiny clay pots lined up inside a fold of a curtain. When they knock them off and find the shards spilling out dozens of apparently dead spiders, they may be appalled. The culprit is the female of a wasp with an exceedingly narrow waist, which, no doubt with huge labour, constructed all the pots and stuffed them with a hundred spiders in less than half a day. Just imagine the journeys needed to collect the wet mud, and the spiders!

If the householder should find the adult wasp [at towards 2 cm long it is somewhat alarming], and hopefully has an inquiring mind, he or she might ponder- ‘With a waist like this, how does any food pass from front to back?’ Perhaps nothing does. I will come back to that mystery. But here we have an example of a creature which was first found in Europe (Austria) in the 1990’s. Since then it has invaded much of Northern Italy, southern France, Spain and parts of Central Europe, but its original home seems to be from near-Asia . This year it has been found in Paris and near Cahors and in Les Landes. It looks as though it will colonise all of France. This species may be an invader but there are various indigenous relatives not dissimilar. In this instance you will see that the waist is black and the abdomen has yellow bands. Some indigenous relatives have bright yellow waists and totally black abdomens or are otherwise marked. These most particularly occur in southern regions.

You can call it a potter-wasp. Inside each pot the adult lays one egg and then fills the pot with between 6 to 12 tiny spiders, paralysed with a nerve poison. The developing larva gradually eats the paralysed prey, starting with the abdomens, and in about a month will convert into a pupa and then into the adult.

Can that narrow waist ‘the petiole’ contain the gut, a blood vessel and a nerve? It is plain that no solid food can pass through it. It seems unlikely that anything much passes through it. It is as though the structure is little more than something like a tow-bar on an articulated lorry. The front end does the moving, getting energy from the sugar rich nectar which it consumes. The rear end is effectively no more than a reproductive structure, stuffed with eggs, rather as the lorry’s articulated trailer is stacked with goods. This ‘trailer’ will have nerve ganglia and possibly they control the reproductive activities. The adult insect has finished growing and has no need for anything much in its diet except energy, i.e. sugars.