South west summer brings dearth of wildlife

IN THE southwest, the summer has, so far, been indifferent. “Summery In-justice!” I’d call it. While the midlands have their share of sun-blessed days, here, on the holiday coast, when it isn’t raining buckets, a sea mist blots out the sun.

There are notable absences in nature. No butterflies, or almost none. My vigilant opposite in the Irish Times, Michael Viney, noted in his July 4 column that a group of 30 searchers walked 5km in a nature reserve in Donegal without seeing a single butterfly, but then came upon 10 species in a small area.

He commented: “Retreating to a hot spot, then spreading out when things get better; this is, apparently, how butterflies survive.” An interesting observation, and a relief to know. I’ve noticed, in some years, the near absence of certain species, and wondered how a new crop would be engendered to fly on the following year.

A regular walker and astute nature watcher living in my area, Mr Michael O’Brien, pointed out another phenomenon: the absence of flowers on gorse. Had I seen any gorse in flower? he asked. My answer is no: and since he asked, I’ve looked carefully.

Even in gorse-country, the bushes aren’t flowering. There were no flowers on the gorse in deep west Cork last weekend. Neither, it seems, were there flowers on the ‘whins’ in Scotland. On the TV news, I saw that the break of gorse in which Padraig Harrington’s wild tee shot landed at the St Andrew’s Golf Open Championship was a hundred yards long but not a solitary orange flower was to be seen.

My good neighbour O’Brien referred to the old adage: “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season.” We know that kissing is never out of season; it never was and, we hope, never will be — it is more prevalent than ever since for women (and for men, too) the Continental protocol of bussing a female pal on one or both cheeks is now de rigueur for anyone with pretentions of sophistication.

Thus, the kissing habit is as secure as the certainty of a French gorse bush in golden flower somewhere, no matter what the location, season or weather. Perhaps the kissing adage originated in France. Irish (aka Western) Dwarf gorse flowers only in late August and September, and often, as the song goes, “amongst the blooming heather”.

So, in summer 2015, gorse aka, furze is behaving strangely. Correspondents have also pointed out the scarcity of butterflies, bees and even hoverflies, and it is now late July. Farmers tell me the winter barley hasn’t yet fattened, and they fear a harvest not worth reaping.

Meanwhile, the hedge cutting, even along by-roads, can’t be helping. Controversy rages. Truckers, and drivers of smart cars, complain, not without justification, that they lose wing mirrors and sustain scratches on their paintwork as a result of overgrown hedges.

Those interested in nature point out the invaluable, irreplaceable pollinators of our crops, rely on hedgerows for shelter and sustenance, now that the fields beyond them have no pollen flowers but are dedicated to blue grass prairies, to grow more milk, now dropped to 27c a litre since the no-quota regime came in.

What I can’t understand is why the hedges have to be massacred so viciously. They are flayed (as in ‘skinned’) and the flail-saws shatter more limbs than they cut. Who is responsible? In some cases, county councils, often responding to complaints from the transport, smart car or rural tidiness lobby; in some cases farmers, who are put in fear of legal actions against them should a road accident occur along a stretch of road edged by their hedge.

As a result, they instruct the privately-hired flail-saw contractors to cut the hedge to the quick so that they won’t have the expense of employing them but once every five years.

What I also can’t understand is why grassy areas between the verge and the ditch, often a distance of two or more metres, has to be shorn. The occasional scalped sceac or bush surviving on the ditch is remote from traffic. What harm are the verge plants, meadowsweet, meadow buttercups, loosestrife, nettles, hemp agrimony doing?

They cause no damage even if one drives into them. Meanwhile, they provide sustenance and shelter and cradles for the insects without which we, the council men, contractors, truckers and smart-car drivers, and our children, would not survive.

There oughta be a law! The environment is fragile. Those who instruct the contractors and the free-wheeling contractors themselves must be curtailed.