Right now it's 29°C and tomorrow it will reach 34°C in Bristol, where I live. Temperatures that were anomalies - record-breaking, even - a few years ago are fast becoming commonplace, and it's wearying - and worrying.
Our city rivers are running very low ...
The River Frome at Winterbourne Down
The River Trym at Badock's Wood
The Hazel Brook at Blaise
... and the parks and nature reserves are tinder dry.
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Bronze-age round barrow at Badock's Wood
Purdown
Vassalls Park
And the trees continue to drop branches, and in some cases, fall, as they have ever since last summer, which was also extremely hot and dry.
Lincombe Woods
Snuff Mills/Vassalls Park
Though they might not actually be that safe to walk around, Cwtch and I have stuck to the woods on our daily walks as much as possible, given that it's several degrees cooler in them than being out in the open. Even so, we've tried to get out as early as we can, to miss the worst of the heat that builds throughout the day and peaks late afternoon.
sunrise on Purdown ...
... and in Hermitage Wood
Watching rabbits at sunrise
Other parts of the Frome look a little fuller. We've been mooching through Snuff Mills regularly ...
... and one morning we went through the stone stile on the far side of Frenchay Bridge and walked through Lincombe Woods.
Further upstream, at Winterbourne, it was cool in the quarries and Cwtch was happy to dabble her paws ...
... while at Blaise we wandered along the banks of the Hazel Brook, a tributary of the Trym, and lurked in the ditches of Kings Weston hill fort, scouting for feathers ...
... of which there have been many, from all of our walks. Though as always, they have to be hunted for, rather than just found.
Of course sometimes you find a lot all at once, which is a shame ...
... but if there's not too many, we make a little shrine to honour the dead one(s) ...
thrush shrine
... which have often met their end at the beak and claws of a sparrowhawk.
My best feather finds to date have been a wren primary, to go with the one I picked up last year, both in gateways on the eastern edge of Barn Wood on Purdown (though what I'd really love is a wren tail feather) ...
... and this jay tertial, the first one I've found which has some blue on it, and also some very natty banding - such a lot going on in one feather.
Apart from the aforementioned rabbits and sparrowhawks, most wildlife has been lying low, the birds in moult and the rest possibly because it's so hot. Much of what we've seen has, as usual, been dead:
CLOCKWISE from top left: a new brood of thrushes; dead rat; dead and alive squirrels; dead crow; blackberry-eating badger poo; decapitated mouse; robin
CLOCKWISE from top left: buff-tailed bumble bee; Speckled Wood; Gatekeeper; Red Admiral; demoiselle wings
Most of the wild flowers are over themselves too - just the following late bloomers:
CLOCKWISE from top left: wild clematis; wild carrot; burdock; rowan; loosestrife; creeping thistle; the dreaded Himalayan Balsam
Fungi, on the other hand, are coming into their own. I'm not very good at identifying them, so I now have an app, but I'm not sure it's much better. Anyhow, here goes:
TOP ROW: pinkish porecrust; oak mazegill; King Alfred's cakes; branching oyster
SECOND ROW: ganoderma; dryad's saddle; beefsteak fungus; something with mould on it
THIRD ROW: chicken of the woods; shaggy bracket; dead man's fingers; oak bracket
BOTTOM ROW: artist's bracket; penniporia fraxinea; lumpy bracket; green elf cup 🙂
Oh, and stinkhorn in various stages
Finally, hoggin - not something I actively look for this time of year, when there are feathers to be found, but I got quite a haul all the same, including some quite big bits.
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