In July the Sun is Hot…

ByMikeGeorge

Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente combination of the River of Sorrow in Hades (Acheron) and Atropos (she who cannot be turned), the Fate who severed the thread of life that her sisters spun. One thing the moth is bad news for is potatoes; its huge, yellow, blue-striped caterpillar feeds on the leaves of Solanaceous plants, particularly the potato!

But it is that rather unsettling period when the weather tends to get hotter but the nights start drawing in. Summer is certainly in full swing, but the approach of autumn – if not winter – is subtly being signalled.

However, it is the time when nature is at its most frenetic, and there are boundless things to watch out for.

Insects seem to dominate in many ways. Flies are very active – everything from huge black creatures to tiny aphids. Beware of horse-flies, which are surprisingly large striped flies with long legs and a desire for blood. Sadly (for them) they don’t have a nice hypodermic system for collecting it as mosquitoes do; horse-flies have to saw through your skin to get to it, and that can hurt!

For me, it’s always the butterflies and moths that are worth watching. The Swallowtail Papilio machaon should be around this month, fitting in between the two annual appearances of its cousin the Flambé Iphiclides podalirius. Watch out too for the Hummingbird Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum, a small, dayflying hawk-moth that spends all its time flitting from flower to flower. It has the curious habit of hovering, wings a-blur, in front of each blossom and pushing its impossibly long tongue deep into the nectar-sac to drink without otherwise touching the flower. More rarely seen is the Bee Hawk-moth, again small but distinctly yellow, which also hovers but rests its front feet on the lower petals of any plant from which it drinks.

To see the larger hawk-moths you will have to do some night exploring. A streetlamp sometimes attracts specimens. Occasionally you may find a Large Elephant Hawk-moth Deilephilla elpenor resting on a tree-trunk in late afternoon. This beautiful moth, like other hawkmoths, folds its wings down into a triangle across the top of its body, and is a lovely mixture of pink and olive green. It is named for its caterpillar, which has a distinctive way of pulling its narrow forebody into its main body and thereby inflating a pair of false eye-marks on its 5th segment, thus resembling a snake. The French call it Le Grand Sphinx de la Vigne. Sphinx is their name for any hawkmoth, which is not surprising; the approved scientific name for the family of hawk-moths is Sphyngidae.

The wingspan is between 80 and 120 mm (up to 5 inches in old units), and the moth can squeak audibly if disturbed

The largest is the Death’s Head Hawkmoth Acherontia atropos (Fr: Sphinx têtede-mort). This nocturnal moth is quite frightening in appearance. It is not highly coloured, as many hawk-moths are; it has a large, furry abdomen; and on the thorax is a dark marking that many consider to look like a skull. It doesn’t, if you study it, but at a quick glance it might be so considered. The wingspan is between 80 and 120 mm (up to 5 inches in old units), and the moth can squeak audibly if disturbed. You can get some idea of the awe it inspired even in scientists, when you realise that its scientific name is a

Unlike most of the hawk-moths that use a long, narrow, flexible tongue to seek nectar deep in flowers, the Death’s Head is equipped with a very short, strong tongue. With this it can pierce the skins of rotting fruit to drink the fermenting juices, but also it can pierce the wax capping of bee-combs to get at the stored honey. To do this it enters the hive, protected by its sheer size, its thick coat of fur, and certain signals (including its squeak) that somehow fool the bees into accepting its presence.

In the world of butterflies, the “Brown” butterflies start to make themselves known. The ones you are likeliest to encounter are the Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria (Fr: Tercis), the Wall Lasiommata megera (Fr: Mégère ou Satyr), the Gatekeeper Pyronia tithonus (Fr: Amaryllis), and the Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina (Fr: Myrtil). These can be quite tricky to tell apart at a glance. The first two look quite similar in France. In the UK there is little problem, as the ground-colour of the Speckled Wood is distinctly yellow. In France it is orange- brown, similar to that of the Wall. The Gatekeeper and the browner specimens of the Meadow Brown can also be confused, but there is one distinguishing point. The Gatekeeper has a double-cored eye-spot on the upper corner of each fore-wing, while the Meadow Brown’s eyespot is single-cored.

More out in the country, keep an eye open for the Marbled White butterfly Melanargia galathea (Fr: Demi-Deuil = halfmourning). This attractive brown-andcream chequered butterfly flies about a metre off the ground, with a fairly determined flight. It likes open fields and well-grown grassy areas in particular.

The Roe deer produces a discreet bark, rather like a dog bark or a heavy smoker’s cough will soon be thinking of returning to their winter grounds. Often it is the falling-off of insect prey that makes the decision. The cuckoo, of course, has no children to raise; there are children, but the cuckoo’s cunning form of brood parasitism means that the cuckoo has passed the responsibility of raising them to others, so there is no reason to stay. The rascal will go in late July or early August. The hoopoe, being a proper parent, will stay longer. So will the swallows, swifts, and martins, who usually stay around until September.

You may be fortunate enough to see the Purple Emperor Apatura iris (Fr: Grand Mars changeant). The male of this species has a stunning purple iridescence that moves over the upper wings as they move in the light, as the colour is a diffractive effect caused by fine ridges on the wingscales. The poor female has no such glory! In Britain the only place you are likely to see one is in open woodland, but in France they seem a bit more parochial. I have even seen them in gardens!

Our resident birds are busy raising families. They will stay to the end of the season, but some of the migratory birds

A walk by the waterside is always rewarding at this time of year, as the Odonata are busy. That’s the damselflies and dragonflies. A dragonfly can be a startling thing to meet if it decides to fly by your head, but the chance of it becoming enmeshed in your hair is very remote; their eyesight is too good. The damselflies are simply charming – look out for the electric-blue Calopteryx splendens, the Banded Demoiselle, which I have seen in England, but which seems much more common in France. The male sports an iridescent blue colour over most of its wing-area. The Beautiful Demoiselle Calopteryx virgo is similar, but with a smaller colour patch. One odd happening in July is the rut of the Roe Deer. These deer are very common in

France, and will even wander into gardens. However, July is the time they choose to mate. This presents a problem. The gestation period for a small deer is about 150 days. This would produce fawns in January, which is not a good survival strategy, even in mid-France. To avoid this, the eggs are fertilised, but then are retained and not implanted in the uterus wall for about 3 months. Thus, the fawns are born in spring.

The Roe Deer rut is a quiet affair. Red Deer males yell their heads off to attract females. The Roe deer produces a discreet bark, rather like a dog bark or a heavy smoker’s cough, which it uses when disturbed or frightened. In the Roe Deer, the attractant sounds are made by the females, who produce a high-pitched whistle that the males find most alluring!