Natural highs and lows

As we reached that time of year known as Mid-Summer's Day, it almost felt like the beginning of a period of pleasant and warm weather. We've been here before though, mesmerised by May and then frozen by February June. As seems to be the way of late, the Met Office struggle with guessing our weather, at least I hope they're just guessing because the resultant predictions aren't worth the price of a mains cable for their super computer. It could be said, this isn't the Met Office's finest hour. Still, come hail or shine, it is flight season for the winged jewels which so entrance me. A trip to a nearby pool (hmmm, still not dug your pond then, NaHaL?), brought the happy sight of dozens of damselflies: many energetic and mature adult Large Reds and a similar number of  pale-coloured wraith-like Blue-tails making their maiden flights.  The Large Reds must have been approaching their peak, the males defending small patches of vegetation at the water's edge and b...

Sunday promised to be unremittingly dreich, so a Saturday leg stretch was undertaken in (mostly) drier conditions. Leaving Houton, the dykes were pinpricked with little bursts of colour as Lesser Celandines lit up the road verges.   Past Houton Head, the coastline is dotted with the ruins of old military defences. I wondered whether these rusting steel cables were similarly naval in origin... But later recourse to an 1882 map suggested that they were connected to the junction of the Land and Submarine Telegraph. Lunch was taken out of the wind in a ruined building by the shore. Along Petertown Road, a small wood revealed the catkins of some Alder trees. I think the long thin ones are this year's male catkins, whilst the round brown ones are last year's female catkins. After an ascent to the trig point on Midland Hill, the downhill route went by the ruined croft of Quarryhouse. Here, my attention was drawn to a shallow pool (which only looked like it was there due to recent rain...