19th June 2025

A Week on the Estate: Flaming June, Summer Solstice & Golden Bugs

We’re three week into meteorological summer and astronomical summer will begin with the solstice on Saturday 21^st June. On that day at our latitude, the sun will rise at 0431 and set at 2132 giving us a little over 17 hours of daylight. It looks like the sun will be putting his hat on to mark the occasion, with a forecast temperature range of 32C-16C on Saturday, making it potentially the hottest day of the year so far for us.

As we embark on what we hope will be a long and bountiful summer, the Lincoln Red herd team are rounding off a successful calving season. If you missed our chat with Cattle Manager Philip Taylor, you can catch-up HERE. If you’d like to learn more about our charismatic native-breed cattle, we’ve just updated our bumper Lincoln Red blog and you can find it HERE.

Speaking of Philip Taylor, if you were lucky enough to join him on one of our May cattle tours, you’ll know he’s passionate and knowledgeable about his trade. You may recall he pointed out the little golden flies that he likened to the busy bees of our pastures. He’s discovered the name of this bug and shared a little more information.

The noon fly (Mesembrina meridiana) is a big fan of cow dung and an important link in the food chain. It lays its eggs in cattle dung and its larvae help to break the matter down and return nutrients to the soil. They also predate on the young of other fly species that can be biting, buzzing pests to cattle.

When they’re not turning cowpats into creches, adult noon flies are partial to nectar and are useful pollinators. The noon fly might not be as appealing as a swift or a kestrel, but it is a vital part of our farming ecosystem. It turns out that where there’s muck, there’s brass – and sometimes gold too. Thanks to Philip for sharing these insights into the symbiosis of life on the pasture.

Speaking of life on the wing, it’s high time we brought you the latest BirdWeather. According to our network of acoustic sensors, the top 20 for June to date (by number of acoustic activations) looks like this:

1. Blackbird (11,042) / 2. Woodpigeon (8,059) / 3. Goldcrest (5,023) / 4. Jackdaw (4,039) /

5. Robin (3,441) / 6. Redstart (2,672) / 7. Dunnock (1,929) / 8. Chaffinch (1,621) /

9. Blue tit (1,015) / 10. Wren (862) / 11. Long-tailed tit (818) / 12. Great tit (686) /

13. Blackcap (560) / 14. Rook (450) / 15. Pheasant (448) / 16. Yellowhammer (408) /

17. Goldfinch (370) / 18. Stock dove (283) / 19. Collared dove (266) /

20. Spotted flycatcher (255)

Since the beginning of meteorological summer, we’ve had more than 47,254 hits from 94 bird species. Rooks are highly vocal and visible in late spring and early summer as they gather in rookeries and rear their young. Wrens are also particularly feisty and outspoken at this time of year.

It’s heartening to see farmland birds like the dunnock, blackcap and yellowhammer continuing to thrive, and we’re thrilled to see the redstart doing so well on our doorstep. The redstart – its English name deriving from the old vernacular for ‘red tail’ – is a summer visitor from trans-Saharan Africa. It is declining in Europe and its UK strongholds tend to be in western regions, but it appears to be doing well in our neck of the woods.

There is a tantalising possibility that turtle doves are gracing our countryside this season. BirdWeather logged 26 activations in the last few weeks, the best scoring 5.041 (84.5% accuracy and 2.6% probability). The turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur) is red-listed and has suffered drastic decline, possibly due to a lack of grain and seed during the breeding season. While the evidence for the turtle dove’s presence here is far from definitive at the moment, our creation of winter bird-food plots to bridge the seasonal hunger gap is proving a boon for a pleasing variety of bird species.

Finally this week, if you had chance to say hello to the South Ormsby Estate team at the Lincolnshire Show this week, thanks for stopping by and we hope you enjoyed a free sip or two of fine Massingberd-Mundy gin. If you missed out this time, you can always browse our range online HERE, including award-winning favourites Burrell’s Dry Gin and Marie Jeanne’s Pink Gin and our new taste sensation, Blood Orange Gin Liqueur.

If you’d like to join the conversation, we’d love to hear from you. Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the latest blog post. As ever, thanks for your support.

* Noonfly image by Paul van der Velde via Flickr CC

* Redstart image by Hedera.Baltica via Flickr CC

* Turtle dove image by Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan via Flickr CC

A Week on the Estate: Flaming June, Summer Solstice & Golden Bugs

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