It’s been a funny old year: one day the Beast from the East, the next, the longest dry spell since 1976. As a result, there will be both winners and losers among our wildlife for the summer of 2018. As some species gasp, others are blissful.
Wild-game shoots are anticipating a great season, especially as, on a well-managed estate, fine weather during the breeding season is the biggest deciding factor as to how pheasant and partridge broods fare. Provided grouse came out of the winter in good condition, moors should be teeming with chicks. However, all wild birds are dependent on insects, which need some moisture to thrive. The waders that migrate to the uplands to breed rely on the damp conditions to allow their young to probe for juicy morsels, but this year, they will be thwarted by an impenetrable crust.
Fishermen are struggling, as the water levels in some rivers are too low for salmon and sea trout to move upstream. Similarly, hot weather can affect coarse fish through de-oxygenation of the water or the abundance of lethal algae blooms. Sharks and mackerel give the sea-fishing industry a boost by venturing closer to the shore, but bathers will be less than thrilled by the writhing shoals around their legs and less happy still with the influx of flotillas of stinging jellyfish.
Inland, evaporating ponds and puddles are causing tadpoles and froglets to be marooned in greater concentrations, providing an easy meal for ravenous badgers and foxes, whose usual snacks of worms, slugs and snails are retreating deeper into the soil. Bees and wasps’ nests are constantly raided for moist grubs within; moles follow worms to hedgerows and woodland as the dry soil cracks into chasms wide enough for chicks to fall into.
Grasshoppers and crickets communicate their merry-making via loud, rasping mechanical chirrups as they bounce around in bleached meadow grass. Adders love to bask in the sun, too, and warning signs are being put up in places where this usually shy viper goes about its slithery business.
Many butterfly species thrive as, day after day, temperatures reach the required 13˚–17˚C-plus required to stimulate them into action. Balmy nights encourage moths to fly, which, in turn, makes for good hunting for bats. However, these conditions may have an adverse affect on butterfly larvae and pupae and cause a population crash next year. You can’t win! Interestingly, we’ve yet to see ladybird swarms and cockchafers are notable by their absence. Only some like it hot, it seems.
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Can't you hear me S.O.S? Our treasured native dog breeds are at risk of extinctionDo you know your Kerry blue terrier from your Lancashire heeler? A simple lack of publicity is often to blame for some of the UK's native dog breeds flying dangerously low under-the-radar.
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'There are architects and architects, but only one ARCHITECT': Sir Edwin Lutyens and the wartime Chancellor who helped launch his stellar careerClive Aslet explores the relationship between Sir Edwin Lutyens and perhaps his most important private client, the politician and financier Reginald McKenna.
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Food with a pinch of salt: The crops we can harvest from the seaFilling, rewarding and nutritious, vegetables and plants grown in saline environments — whether by accident or design — have plenty of potential. Illustration by Alan Baker.
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White-tailed eagles could soon soar free in southern EnglandNatural England is considering licensing the release of the raptors in Exmoor National Park — and the threat to pets and livestock is considered to be low.
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Britain's whale boom and and the predator that's far scarier than a great white shark, with wildlife cinematographer Dan AbbottThe wildlife cinematographer Dan Abbott joins us on the Country Life Podcast.
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'They are inclined to bite and spray acid to protect territory': Meet the feisty red wood ant -
The King wants YOU: His Majesty's call-to-arms for under-35s across BritainThe King’s Foundation has launched its ‘35 under 35’ initiative — a UK-wide search for ‘the next generation of exceptional makers and changemakers’ who want to work holistically with Nature.
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'A big opportunity for a small, crowded and beautiful country': Fiona Reynolds on how the Land Use Framework can make Britain betterThe Government’s Land Use Framework should be viewed as an opportunity to be smarter with our land, but conflicts need to be resolved along the way says Fiona Reynolds, chair of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.
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Dawn Chorus: A river comes to life, more mews is good mews, and the new 400-mile electric VolvoRivers now have the legal right to flow, and to not be full of pollution. It's about time.
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Dawn Chorus: The perfect job for incurable romantics, Britain's rudest roads, woodland workshops and spring in CornwallLiving on a near-deserted island, and getting paid for the privilege? No wonder tens of thousands of people were keen.
