By Peter Conway

WEATHER

One dreams of July during the colder months, but the reality is usually a little more ambiguous. The month generally has a mix of hot sunny high summer weather, and cool grey skies with heavy rain.

The old Flanders and Swan tag sums up July pretty well: “In July the sun is hot: is it shining? No, it’s not!” Or as Jane Austen perceptively puts it in one of her letters (no 86): “July begins unpleasantly with us, cold and showery, but it is often a baddish month.”

We expect July to be hot, and indeed if there is going to be a heatwave in the summer, this is the month it happens. For example, in the hot dry summers of 2003 and 2006 this was the month when temperatures reached up to 37 degrees, and the second week of July 2005 and the last weeks of July 2001 and 2004 were also very hot.

July 2006 was a particularly hot month – the hottest on record, in fact - with successive waves of heat building to an intensely sticky climax (the worst day being 19 July). Grey showery weather tried to break through from the 5th to the 10th and from the 30th onwards, but in neither case was there more than a few minor showers of rain. The grass, already parched by a dry June, shrivelled completely, and even trees and shrubs started to wilt. Everyone started to worry seriously about global warming.

2006 was (at least so far) very unusual, however. Normally July also has a good dose of grey cool days with heavy rain interspersed among the sunshine. It is in fact statistically the third wettest month in London, behind November and August, and equal with October. (Thunderstorms help this total: July is a much drier month on the south coast)

Even in 2003, there four days of rain and three days of cloud, for example, while in 2005 the month started and ended on a wet note. The third week of July in 2001 was also one of gloom and cloud, and 2004 (a relatively wet summer) saw the whole first three weeks of the month beset with this type of weather. 2008 was a classic mix, with cooler, showery and breezy weather and only the odd hot sunny day until around 21 July, after which there was a heatwave with temperatures in the 25-30 degree range (and some sultry sticky nights) for the rest of the month.

July 2007 also exemplified this pattern, with much of the month dominated by a succession of Atlantic fronts, continuing a pattern that had begun in May, and made it the wettest May to July for the UK on record.

Having said that, while 20 July 2007 saw torrential rain that caused heavy flooding in Gloucestershire, and late in Oxfordshire, dominating the national news, it was not such a terrible month in the south east. All four weekends in the month were sunny (though in one case more on the south coast than in London), and there was good amounts of sun on many other days.

Even the “cool” temperatures of July 2007 were only average – 20-22 degrees – though with stiff breezes sometimes making them feel cooler. And just when everyone was convinced we would never see any “proper” summer, the weather relented on 28 July, with high pressure setting in for the next two weeks, and temperates climbing up to a respectable 30 degrees at times.

The reason for all this variation is the “Azores High”, a large area of high pressure that drifts up from the Atlantic and brings hot sunshine. When the high is pushed south again, Atlantic fronts rush in above it. The strength and persistence of the Azores High – or the Atlantic jetstream that keeps it out - determines how nice a July we have. In 2007, for example, the jetstream was unusually far south for most of the summer, so we in essence got the weather Scotland would otherwise have had.

A surprising fact is that after three days of either type of weather, everyone forgets the other ever existed. When the weather is grey, the complaint is that that we are having no summer at all this year, and the newspapers have gleeful stories about UK holidaymakers caught in the downpours.

But when the sun does shine, the complaints are often just as loud, however. “Oppresively hot”, “very sticky”, and “slept with no bedclothes” are typical diary comments. It can be as much as 20 degrees at midnight – far too hot for bedclothes. (Anything above about 17 degrees feels sticky and opressive)

Thunderstorms can also bubble up as heatwaves progress, or the air can get hazy blurring the boundaries between cloud and sky, or obscuring the view from the downs. And from 10.30 am to 3.30 pm or so, the sun has a fierce white glare that robs photographs of colour.

Even on cool days in July, one rarely needs a second layer: you can often get away with short sleeved shirts even after dark. 27 July 2005, for example, a day of heavy rain, was declared “the coldest July day in London for 25 years”. But even so, a waterproof on top of a short sleeved shirt was still more than adequate right into the evening.

July starts with sunset at 9.20pm, its maximum extent, and for the first ten days or so of the month, the dusk also seems to get no earlier, as if the long evenings will last forever. Towards the end of the month one starts to notice the shortening days ever so slightly, however. Imperceptibly official lighting up times have crept back 9.20pm to 8.50pm. For the moment, you only notice this because it is pitch black at 9.30 pm, whereas a few weeks ago it there was light in the sky until after 10pm, however. Early risers will also notice that the sun comes up at 5.20am by the end of the month, as opposed to 4.50am at the beginning of it.

From mid month, the sea is at last warm enough to swim in (though it seemed to be warm enough in late June in 2008). One often rushes to the coast on a hot sunny day to find the weather there cool and breezy, or even overcast, however.

NATURE NOTES

• Downland flowers are at their best early in the month
• Birdsong abruptly ceases, with only the odd finch chirping away
• Subtle signs of autumn in the second half of the month: berries and seeds ripening; crops being harvested

There are still plenty of wild flowers to be found in July, but they tend to be found in specific locations – for example, on verges, waste ground, or downland.

The Downs bloom

The first part of the month is in fact the best time for downland flowers: providing there has been enough rain, favoured slopes can seem like a garden, with literally dozens of different species within a single square metre.

Prominent flowers include clover (both white and red), field scabious (purple and much lovelier than its name), and smooth hawkbeard and various other hawkbits and hawkweeds (which look a lot like dandelions, but with square ends to their flowers). Also common are herbs such as thyme, majoram, and basil.

Ladies bedstraw (pictured left) and its white equivalent, hedge bedstraw, are also common, and you can see burnet saxifrage (a small flower a bit like cow-parsley) and, near coasts, wild carrots (a low cow parsley-like plant which curls in on itself when it goes over). As the month progresses, knapweed, with its purple thistle-like flower also takes over (as do other thistles in general, if they are allowed to). Self-heal, whose tubular heads are dotted with purple trumpets, and vipers burgloss, with its striking blue spikes of flowers are also both to be seen.

Also very noticeable early in the month is St John’s Wort, from which the popular depression cure comes: it fades in the second half of the month. Ragwort – already common earlier in the year on rail lines and waste ground, invades the downs as well in July. More delicate splashes of yellow are provided by birdsfoot trefoil, ribbed or golden melliot, and the ethereal spikes of agrimony. If you see a larger spike of yellow flowers, it is probably mullein. Mignonette, and its taller, leafier look-alike weld also flourish in July, and you can see delicate pink musk mallow. Clumps of blue tufted vetch are also in evidence, along with delicate pink fumitory.

Looking closer and one can see tiny flowers such as eyebright in the grass and the oddly named squinacywort dotted around the grass, as well as restharrow – a delicate pink pea variant that was nevertheless strong enough to stop a harrow, hence its name. Tiny pink clumps of centaury are also seen, as are the bright blue balls of round-headed rampion, and tiny pink cranesbills. A few orchids also survive well into the month. Later in July, clustered bellflower can be spotted as well as diminutive harebells (known as bluebells in Scotland), the striking red flower heads of betony, the white spokes of vervain, and the heather-like red bartsia. Yellow rattle goes over early in the month, leaving its eponymous ratttling seedpods.

If July is reasonably wet – or in favoured well-watered spots - many of these flowers can last well into August, as happened in 2007. In a drier July, as in 2008 (in the second half at least), most of the downland flowers have faded by the month’s end, though ragwort, knapweed and hawksbeards tend to bloom on regardless.

Riotous wasteground

Another great place to see flowers in July is on wasteground, the sides of railways, and odd corners of arable fields. The classic wasteground flowers include ragwort, mallow, the magnificent pink-purple spikes of rosebay willowherb (pictured right) and other willowherbs, and the huge white and pink bell-shaped flowers of bindweed, which may be a gardener’s nightmare but can make a dramatic display in the wild.

Other common wasteland flowers include hawksbeard and their ilk (see Downland flowers above), thistles of various types, fuzzy white meadowsweet (which goes over mid month), tansy, common fleabane, and the dramatic spiky head of teazle with its rim of purple flowers. This is also the time to see everlasting sweet peas, and the startling orange-red berried seed heads of cuckoo pint.

Along railway lines and in odd cracks in derelict urban sites, budleia puts forward its purple spikes of flowers, which attract clouds of butterflies, bees and other insects. Another common railway line flower is evening primrose with its tall stems of large yellow flowers, though it fades as the month goes on. Common toadflax is another pretty verge flower with yellow flowers that can be seen late in July.

There is hemp agrimony with its fuzzy pink heads, and goldenrod, whose tassles of flowers are exactly described by its name (both of these mainly seem to flower later in July, though can be seen earlier). Mugwort, an untidy metallic green weed with similarly coloured flowers, is also ubiquitous, and for a time mid month dock produces modestly striking red spikes of flowers. If you are lucky you might also spot bright blue chicory flowers by the side of a road or path, or a spike of nettle-leaved bellflowers. Early in the month, hedge woundwort – which looks somewhat nettle-like, but has red flowers – and the unfortunately named black horehound (which has rings of pink flowers) also adorn verges. In shadier spots and woodland, enchanter’s nightshade, which puts out spikes of tiny white flowers with dainty seedpods, is common too.

Poppies have generally gone over, but some survive, and another common flower on the edge of arable fields is the daisy-like corn chamomile and the very similar mayweed, which can produce very big displays in favoured spots. One can also find hedge mustard and/or other types of yellow-flowered cress or cabbage still flowering on field edges in the month, while pineapple weed is another common, but widely overlooked, field margin flower.

Hogweed (an umbellifer, which means it looks a bit like cow parsley and is often confused with it) can still be found right to the end of the month along the edges of paths and roads, though a lot of it has already gone over, producing green seed pods, and then going dessicated and brown. This is also the month for the yellow umbellifers wild parsnip and fennel (the latter with a kind of frizzy leaves that smells strongly of aniseed). Much smaller, though very common is yarrow, a white and rather untypical umbellifer which is to be found in fields and verges. On heaths, heather starts to flower late in the month.

Bush-like verge flowers include burdock, with its thistle-like flowers, which comes out mid month, but quickly goes over into its characteristic spiky burs. Towards the end of July you see travellers joy (a kind of clematis), its climbing white flowers not yet transformed into the “old man’s beard” of its autumn name.

Honeysuckle is another climber that you can see in flower for much of July, but towards the end of the month you may also start to see it producing red berries. A climber with heart shaped leaves which also starts to produce red berries as July ends is black bryony, which is the only native member of the yam family. Bittersweet (or woody nightshade), a shrub which has delicate pendulous purple flowers with orange stamens early in July, also starts to put out red berries, and so does the wayfaring tree (also a shrub, this time with thick leaves).

Butterflies and other insects

Wherever there are flowers, butterflies abound, though as the flowers fade, they start to thin out. Watch out for burnet moths throughout the month, however – these striking red creatures look to vibrant to be real, especially when they sit on vibrant orange ragwort flowers.

Other insects of all kinds are also in evidence, including honey bees, bumble bees and flies, the latter being attracted by the moisture of your picnic in years when the rest of the countryside has dried outt. When you sit down after a walk or a cycle on a hot day, there is a column of midges circling over your sweaty head, and this is the month you may be beset by a plague of flying ants (they are off to found new colonies, apparently). Meanwhile, by rivers and ponds one sees dragonflies and damselflies.

Berries, nuts and fruits

This is the height of the strawberry and raspberry seasons, and the shops are full of delicious English varieties. Out in the countyside, bramble (ie blackberry) flowers fade to leave green fruits, and by the end of the month some are red, or even black and ready to eat. Close inspection reveals fruit on the way on lots of other bushes and trees – pale purple sloes on the blackthorn bushes, clusters of still green elderberries, green beach and hazel nut clusters, conkers growing larger on the horse chestnut trees, and lime trees dropping their flowers early in the month leaving little green fruits in their place (They also dropped some fruits too in 2008, but due to drought I think: others remained on trees). Sweet chestnut also drops its long tassles of flowers early in the month, and its nuts start to form in their spiky cases.

Alder puts out green cones (as do some pine trees), but still keeps some of last year’s husks on its twigs. Rowan berries turn orange, and apples and pears ripens in orchards, as do their wild relatives the crab apple. You can also find juicy red wild plums this month.

If all this reminds one of the approach of autumn by the month’s end, so does the sight of dead leaves on the ground. Trees shed a few of these if July is dry, but don’t need to in a wet summer like 2004. In recent years horse chestnut leaves have also started shrivelling in July, but this is not due to the approach of autumn, but the larvae of a leaf mining moth that was first discovered in Wimbledon in 2002 and has spread rapidly.

Birds fall silent

One of the most striking things about July is that birdsong suddenly stops. After the frantic chirping of May and June, it as if the countryside has been suddenly deserted. You may hear blackbirds, thrushes, chaffinches or chiffchaffs early in month, but then their song falls silent, presumably because breeding has come to an end, or maybe because they are rearing young and don’t want to advertise the position of their nests.

Exceptions include dunnocks, who seem to last a bit longer than other birds, and greenfinches and goldfinches, who are still twittering and squeaking at each other at the end of the month. There is also the perennial (though not at all musical) chatter of magpies, and the cheeping of sparrows near human habitation. In scrubbier downland locations you can also hear yellowhammers, and by the sea, the tchaking of stonechats. Some larks also still sing.

The best bird show in July, however, is the sight of house martins wheeling overhead in the late afternoon, diving and swooping to catch insects, and squeaking to each other, seemingly in pure delight. It nearly always does seem to be house martins one sees, not the similar swallows or swifts. House martins can be easily identified not only by their stubbier wings (unlike a swift) or short tail (unlike a swallow), but from their white bellies and the fact that they come to rest on a fence or a telephone wire from time to time, chattering sociably: swifts and swallows, by contrast, are nearly always on the wing.

Wheat ripens

The wheat ripens at the start of the month, turning vast areas of countryside from green to gold, and one can start to hear the moan of combine harvesters in the second half of the month, though most farmers leave their crop in the field until August (the grain needs time to dry on the stalk). One depressing sight is the brown wastes of dried up rape, which in May were such a riot of yellow.

By the waterside

By rivers, and ponds, this is the height of the season for bullrushes and reeds, and there is also water mint and the invasive, but pretty, Himalayan (or Indian) balsam. By riversides and in ditches, one can see purple loosestrife from early in the month. July is also the month when stagnant water can become green with pondweed, but more prettily it is a good month for water lily flowers. In salt marsh, common sea lavender and ditander, and in general near the sea one can see straggly sea beet.

Gardens and parks

In gardens, this is a great month for lavender and enormous hollyhocks: many roses have gone over, however. Japanese knotweed – a feared invasive species, but very pretty on a garden fence – produces masses of frizzy white blooms. There are not many flowers in the grass of parks by now, though some daisies can survive if there is enough rain and the grass is not mown too often. The odd dandelion may also be seen (though don’t confuse them with the much more common smooth hawksbeard, which is smaller and has square ends to its petals).

© Peter Conway 2006 - updated 2007, 2008 • All Rights Reserved • From his South East of England Almanac