We have seen more butterflies this year than we have for a couple of years. Red Admirals have been much more plentiful as have Commas and Painted Ladies. We always get lots of Meadow Browns in the sheep runs but the gravel garden has attracted the prettier, more orangey Gatekeeper, which loves the Scabious flower. The best treat of all though was seeing a Silver-washed Fritillary feeding on the Buddleias.  It’s quite a large orange butterfly with black filigree like marking.  They like the woodland edge and often feed on bramble flowers. We also saw one in Scatterdells Wood fluttering along a bright sunny path. They are much more common in the west of Britain so maybe they are expanding their territory.
They were not the only ones in the garden with expansionist ideas. The lambs fancied some new territory as well. By the beginning of August they had eaten all the green grass and they did not like the toasted straw coloured stuff or the hay I was giving them. Although we had a good battery on the electric fence, some of the lambs decided it was worth the shock to try and escape to eat my plants and trees. The dwarf orchard was a popular target. Something had to give, so I’m afraid they met their doom a month early. I was very lucky in that the abattoir had a cancellation, otherwise I dread to think what would have happened. The remaining ewes and the ram are more respectful of the fence and I am feeding them a few dropped apples each day along with the hay so, hopefully, they will behave themselves.
A lot of wildlife is feeling the pinch. Badgers eat a lot of earth worms and even with their powerful paws the ground is too hard to dig and the worms have gone deep into the soil.  A good crop of wild cherries have been gobbled up by both foxes and badgers.  All the fox droppings that get left on the edge of our terrace are full of cherry stones, as are the ones in the badger latrine by the gate.  Badgers and foxes will eat any grubs, worms or beetles they find and badgers are very fond of sweetcorn, so gardeners beware. It pays to have varied tastes in such hard times!
Wendy Bathurst