4th July, 2025

The rolling hills around Boisjarzeau are bleached after a months of incessant sun; the wheat has been cut early and much of the maize and sunflowers are looking small and underwatered. The irrigation where applied appears futile. The gardens are barely coping too; and yet the wet ditch in the marshy field is still running and full of water mint, water figwort and purple loosestrife. Small solitary bees and wasps are all over the figwort flowers. I again forget to check for any water dock Rumex hydrolapathum, which is the preferred larval food plant of large coppers Lycaena dispar; but these are still here and are fun to spot as they zip low over the wet meadow mixing it with the mazarine blues, just as they were in 2018 and 2023. Sadly, there are no maps, which are equally spectacular.

The scarce large blues Phengaris teleius or Azuré de la Sanguisorbe are not to be found at Les Tourbières de Vendoire even though the larval foodplant, great burnet Sanguisorba officinalis, is just out. However, the fen meadow is swamped by unusually large numbers of dryads Minois dryas and gatekeepers Pyronia tithonus nectaring on the loosestrife.

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