Gently down the stream

By Miranda1008

Small Heath

..butterfly on wild carrot seedhead.

You know I saw hardly any butterflies yesterday on Magdalen Hill, just whites and the odd meadow browns.  What a very bad year it's been, presumably because of the drought?  Today I just went round the corner to Barton Meadows and although I didn't see many more I did capture this small heath looking, I thought, rather fetching!  The rest of the day I've been cleaning the bathroom and gardening, infact I've planted my long awaited lavender hedge, which is exciting.  I also slipped round for a cup of tea with my neighbour.

Looking at the lack of entries for WFW25_19 I've realised the drought additionally seems to have almost completely finished the wildflowers.  Because of this I will not be announcing WFW25_19 hearts, etc, tonight as planned, but am proposing instead to combine entries for  _19 and _20, give out the hearts as usual next Thursday and end this year's challenge at that point.

I've put a notice in Challenges which reads:

Dear Wildflower lovers, the ultra dry summer in the UK and Europe seems, as so many of you have been observing, to have brought autumn forward.  The flowers are seeding and sometimes burnt to the proverbial crisp which, looking at entries for WFW25_19 and WFW25_20, probably accounts for the low numbers.  If I've contributed to this by slightly taking my eye off the ball in the past week or so due to personal stuff, I apologise.

So, what I've decided to do is pool WFW25_19 entries together with WFW25_20 entries and give combined hearts and hon mentions.  I hope you're okay with this.  WFW25_20 ends at midnight Sunday 24th August, at which point the challenge will finish for this year - unless anyone on the other side of the world would like to take it over for your spring and summer.?

Let me know what you think - and have a great evening  xx

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