Something(s) in the air

St Adelphe

I have tried, honestly, to get some nice photos for you of our latest wonder. Having been dive bombed every day for weeks in and around the pool by ghastly green-faced horseflies with a bite like nothing you've known, we are now enchanted by our latest 'playmates' by the pool. They are dragonflies - we have Golden Ringed dragonflies and Emperor dragonflies fluttering around. Sometimes they stop right in front of you and it is as if they are peering into your face to see what you are.

They are just beautiful and quite amazing creatures. We'll be looking them up to see if we can find out more, and also trying to photograph them for these pages.

Later this afternoon whilst sitting and sewing outside in the garden I heard a lot of chattering going on, a sort of 'tseep' and 'tchirrip'. Looking up we could see literally hundreds of house martins swooping and fluttering around as the clouds rolled in and the sky got heavier. Obviously there were plenty of low flying bugs and flies for them to feed on and they were enjoying a huge bugfest orgy! The area they were covering was very wide as they filled the sky.

We know that they are nesting in the church and around the village and now and then the flock has come as far south as our house but we had never seen quite as many as this and we wondered if they were beginning to head south for winter, gathering into larger flocks on the way.

It will be a sad day when we don't see them any more in the village as a sign that summer has left us. Today we have had 26 degrees and beautiful clear skies once again until late afternoon when the cloud has begun to gather. The next few days are forecast as unsettled but we have great hopes that summer isn't over yet.