I'm sure you have all been worrying about whether I'm still keeping it up.
August 27th 2015Well, yes, of course!
I have made 23 visits this year so far (33 in all of 2014). After my last post, things became dry and slow, starting in April. A few times 50-100 animals in May, but then the summer calm kicked in. August had some rains, but produced confusing results: once 157, but the other times it was clearly less to even just 8, and never the 200+ from last year. I did get passed the 1000 records mark for this year, but if you know that last year produced 2800, you'll guess that the peak still has to come. This month often produced high numbers but not without rain. Let's see what the (near) future brings...
Larval deposition: still way too early - first larvae popped up in November the last couple of years. Nearly all ditches, pools and even brooks are still dry, despite some heavy thunderstorms.