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.

Bimonthly Weather Report July August 2010

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Drought is the name for these months.  The grass was brown and the leaves of the oak trees completely browned by the end of August.  The days towards to end of August were particularly hot getting up to 37 degrees on two days.
Our rain water cistern of 42 cubic metres was two thirds empty by the end of August.  It was difficult keeping the vegetable watered.
An Asian wasp - Sceliphron curvatum was found  in the house.  It makes nests like pots out of clay and is spreading throughout France having been seen first some years ago in Austria.  The more disastrous Asian Hornet was also seen feeding on our grapes for the first time.  This creature eats bees. 

The Wart Biter

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The French nature guides call it ‘verrucivore’. The locals just call it a ‘sauterelle’. It is a relatively common beast in the area where I live. In Britain it is rare and in France is said to be declining.

If you have ADSL internet connection, I suggest that you look at this site:--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi6KxpUF06o

It shows an intriguing short video by Dr. Simon Robinson, senior keeper at London Zoo, of the activity of this animal chewing away at a wart on his finger.

The beast which when placed near a wart on the skin actually seeks it out and chews it! It then in this instance regurgitated its stomach contents over the wound which caused Dr. Robinson considerable pain.

I suspect that the extraordinary activity of this creature was discovered by chance in Scandinavia, but did this knowledge anciently reach France? The French nature books have surely borrowed the French name from the Latin. Linnaeus, who gave the Latin name, was a Swede, and he would know of this folklore, and he named it ‘Decticus verrucivorous’ , which also means ‘wart-biter’. A French text states “It is usual to let the insect chew the wart and then burn the wart by deposing the stomach contents on it”. Have there been then dialect French names now lost to us?

What, one wonders, attracts the beast to a wart? What is in the gut contents to cause such pain?

The photo shows a female with its long ovipositor sitting on a vine leaf. She will lay eggs singly in the stony ground. After hatching, the young will take over a year to mature, attaining a size of up to 4 centimetres. Note the blocky pattern of black and white on the wings, and also note the very long antennae. Together these characteristics will distinguish the creature from other grasshoppers and crickets. [N.B. the French word ‘criquet’ indicates the grasshoppers which carry short antenna - Crickets with long antennae are ‘sauterelles’ in French.]

This animal is a relative of the Great Green Cricket, which is one of noisiest chirpers day and night. This one is equally loud but with a rhythm of notes of an increasing rapidity. These ‘chirps’ are produced in full sun only by a males as he moves his left wing which bears a toothed rib rapidly over the hind edge of the right wing.

There is no point in sounding off unless the female can hear! These insects have ears which are found on the front legs just below the front knees. But things are more complicated even than that. The ear structure is rather like an ear trumpet in form. The wide end is not on the leg but on the thorax under the side flap which extends down from the back. There is an opening on each side which leads into an ear tube which in an ever decreasing width leads down to the leg and ends up between two slits which are visible below the knee. The sound is by this means amplified when it gets there. Oscillating membranes vibrate to the sounds and nerve endings send messages to whichever part of the nervous system is programmed to respond.

Bimonthly Weather Report May-June 2010

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Summer arrived belatedly on the 22nd June.  The overnight temperatures were about five degrees on average below those of 2009.  In the middle of May the central heating was still in use.  Sleet fell on the 5th.  Rainfall was high in both months, with 67 and 157 mms respectively.  In 2009 the figures were 50 and 38 mms.  The first half of June was perhaps the wettest period we have had in 11 years.  The exceptional fall of 54 mm on the 9th was in more southern France exceeded by many times that with serious flooding and damage in the Var region.  But after the 22nd of June all was back to normality with no rain and finally considerable heat with the day temperatures approaching 30.
Natural History.  The numbers of the green eyed horsefly Philipomyia graeca seem to be very much less this year.  They fly into the house and get trapped on the windows.   The Hoopoe (an exotic brown/orange and black bird, with a delightful crest) seems more common.