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READ MORE ARTICLES....
How to Create a Wildlife
Friendly Garden - BBC Easy Gardening
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A Flavour
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The Rural Craft
of Hedgelaying in Dorset - The Countryman
Managing your
Garden in October - Country and Border Life
The Historic
Welsh Gardens of Plas Tan y Bwlch - The Countryman
Looking after
the Bees in your Garden - Daily Express
Making Wildlife
Ponds the Easy Way - Daily Express
Wings over
Mull - a Centre for Birds of Prey - The Countryman
A New Garden for
Wildlife with Butterflies in Mind - Butterfly Conservation
The
Extraordinary Wildlife Art of Ian and Richard Lewington - Limited
Edition Magazine
'I went to
Noke and Nobody Spoke' - Fascinating Otmoor - Limited Edition
Magazine
Gardening on the
Wild Side of Town - New Consumer Magazine
Peter Parks and the Great Rainforest Project -
Limited Edition Magazine
The Countryside in January - Limited Edition
Magazine
The Countryside
in May - Limited Edition Magazine
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Contact Jenny to find out more about her freelance writing
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THE COUNTRYSIDE
IN MAY
May sees the start
of a wonderful period in the countryside when plants are growing at a
rapid pace and the roadsides and hedgerows are lush and green. Bird
activity is at a peak as young birds are exploring their surroundings or
adults are tending to second broods. Hedgehogs are courting and mating
(often very noisily!) and spring butterflies such as orange tip, small
tortoiseshell and peacock overlap with early summer species including
common blue, small copper and green veined white at the end of the month.
All in all it is a time of great wildlife activity with plenty to see and
do in the countryside.
Gathering Nuts
in May May is one month about which there is a wealth of
country lore, some of it quite perplexing. ‘Here we go gathering nuts in
May’, a very confusing saying, refers to the plant called pignut or earth
nut, a species of white flowered umbellifer and a relation of the wild
carrot. It was a common practice to dig up the small tubers that formed
beneath the plant, which when eaten raw tasted of unripe hazelnuts.
‘Ne’er caste a clout ‘til May be out’ refers to may blossom (hawthorn)
rather than the month of May. The advice of country folk in this saying
was to make sure to keep your vest on (clout meaning a vest or
undergarment) until the may blossom was on the hedgerows, usually sometime
in April. This would indicate that the weather had really warmed up!
Cow Parsley
and Bluebells One wildflower that is very much in evidence
this month is cow parsley or Queen Anne’s lace. Its delicate ferny
foliage can be seen along almost any roadside in the countryside in May,
crowned with a froth of small white flowers with a slightly sickly scent.
Country lore tells us that this is a plant, along with many others, that
brings bad luck – children were told that to pick it could bring about the
death of their mother. Indeed, Mother Die was a well known country name
for cow parsley. Bluebells will also be flowering this month. We are
famed the world over for our bluebell woods and a swathe of azure blue
beneath hazel coppice or elegant beech trees is a sight not to be missed.
It is apparently our climate that produces such spectacular bluebell
woods, which are of international importance. Britain has 20 per cent of
the world’s bluebells which are protected under the Wildlife and
Countryside Act. If you do get a chance to walk through a woodland
with these stunning flowers, keep strictly to footpaths to avoid any
damage to the delicate bulbs.
Moth Night This month we celebrate several special days with countryside
connotations including May Day (May 1st), a festive holy day which
originated with the ancient Celts and Saxons in pagan Europe to celebrate
the first spring planting of crops. Oak Apple Day on May 29th
commemorates the return of Charles II to London in 1660. And more
recently a designated national day often occurs in May - National Moth
Night. All over the country, professional and amateur entomologists will
be setting up light traps in gardens, meadows and woodland to attract
these beautiful insects, often considered to be the poor relations of the
more familiar butterflies. Light traps can attract moths from some
distance around. They are harmless to the moths which shelter inside the
trap until they can be identified and released the next day. Some
enthusiasts will sit up all night with their traps, expecting a haul of
several hundred insects on a night with good weather conditions. Species
with descriptive names such as buff ermine, cream wave, heart and dart and
blood vein may turn up. The first of the huge hawk moths – lime hawkmoth
and poplar hawkmoth – could also put in an appearance. These insects are
a fascinating and important part of our wildlife that go largely
unnoticed. They and their larvae provide food for many other creatures,
including bats, hedgehogs and birds. Try leaving an outside light on for
a few hours in May. You may be amazed at the beautiful insects that turn
up.
Bugs in May
As the evenings get warmer other insects are also attracted to the lights
around our dwellings, as well as to light traps for moths. At this time
of year the huge, aptly named maybug or cockchafer may crash against your
lighted windows. This large beetle spends three or four years underground
as a large white larva, eating the roots of grasses. A pet hate of
gardeners, these larvae are relished by rooks and are sometimes known as
rook worms. The beetles themselves are shiny and brown and slightly
alarming as their brisk buzzing flight makes them appear even larger than
they actually are. You may come across another species of cockchafer
which is sometimes discovered sitting in flower blossoms. The rose chafer
is considerably smaller than its maybug cousin, and is often green or gold
rather than brown. Being considerably smaller, it is distinctly less
frightening.
©
Copyright Jenny Steel 2017 |
