Gatekeeper moment

I walked out last Thursday, down to watch a few yards of trout stream pass peacefully by in the sunshine. I was grabbing a little lunchtime exercise to relieve the stiffness from Wednesday badminton, but walking largely for my soul.

Insects and birds flew around as I descended the hill and crossed the meadow. First (ignoring for now the crows and jackdaws) a ringlet. As the trees drew back from the path a little and quaking grass and bramble were joined by thorn and fern, the meadow brown zone began.

The track turned, wooded to the right and fields to the left, with mature deciduous trees on boundaries. Here there was some excitement over a juvenile buzzard, mobbed by lazy crows that didn't appear threatened, just concerned to establish a pecking order. These shared the blue with seagulls.

In the meadow were mostly these two butterfly species, with an occasional white, a rarer peacock, a small blue? At the first dike the dragons began with a green darter of some sort. The demoiselles also showed with damsels too, a blue and a green and a red.

At the river the demoiselles were dense, flying over the banks and the hedges, skimming over the rippled flowing stream, keeping out of the range of the mouths of brown trout who beat their tails to maintain station in the races or patrol the pools, not yet rising.

I saw a red admiral here and little skippers. A brood of ducklings and five signets with a parent on regal patrol. There were more green damsels and a speckled moth which flashed a red underwing when disturbed. The second brood of commas were patrolling, bright and bold like fools' fritillaries.

At every flicker of brown and orange I watched for the characteristic pattern of the gatekeeper upper wing, but saw only the brown and eyed wings of meadow browns. (A marbled white on the way back up the hill).

On Saturday I was in my garden (a wild and wildlife friendly place if you must imagine it) and, of a sudden, was surrounded by gatekeepers. It was that moment of the year when the changeover happens, from meadow browns to gatekeepers. The 12th of July this year.

The hedgehog has been hiding, but the young robin is still chasing insects on the lawn. The slowworms are about. I dug one out of the compost heap whilst tidying a week ago and saw one basking in the morning on our rotting tree stump. Both of these examples, assuming they were different individuals looked like healthy fat females, so there are babies to anticipate.

I cut the lawn today. I've never known the sward so thick in July. We've had warmth and sunshine with just enough showers to keep everything growing. The apple trees have a fair crop, by numbers, but the sizes are well ahead of the last few years.