Day 61

I’m posting this a couple of days late just as I’m being a bit lazy. I delayed my normal lunchtime walk for a work from home day until the evening as I wasn’t really feeling like it at lunchtime. It was quite a muggy evening but everything was quite dry – no gaiter weather. Our thistle is getting a bit past its best but it’s neighbour has now flowered

Things are changing so fast at this stage – some of blackberries have berries forming and are well past the flowering stage, while others are still flowering.

Further on, a few of the bilberries are developing nicely but they don’t seem to have done very well this year – there are very few. Ardagh mountain isn’t really quite high enough for bilberries to thrive but the do make quite a tasty little snack for late summer walks.

It is funny how you take time to find things out when your children ask you, but I had myself wondered since I was a child what “cuckoo-spit” was. It is fairly abundant at this time of year although is isn’t too prevalent later in the day. Anyway, I looked it up and discovered it is a defence mechanism of the Froghopper nymph. The secret the foam and then hide from predators inside the foamy mass while living off plant sap. So that’s that mystery solved.