Country Diary: Wenlock Edge

Mad dogs and Englishmen - well, just one of each - go out in the midday sun. As a fierce heat soaks into the flowery grassland of Windmill Hill, the true celebrants of summer gather across its banks. Ringlet, meadow brown, large skipper, small heath and gatekeeper butterflies flicker low over the flowers in a carnival of browns and oranges. Crickets set the grass alight with the sound of sun-crazed fiddling.

But the first hot days of July here really belong to the six-spot burnets. These day-flying moths of jet-black with flashy scarlet spots have a heavy, awkward flight and look more like beetles than moths in the air. But they love the purple and pink flowers - orchids, centuary, knapweed, wild thyme - and sometimes so many gather on one flower they bend it over. The burnet plants they may have got their name from, the salad burnet, are beginning to flower, but the larvae of these moths feed on birds-foot trefoil which has been flowering a brilliant sunny yellow on this little patch. Although watching the butterflies and moths on the hill is redolent with summer's charm and romance, it's too damn hot for me, so I press on to the woods and dive into the trees, soaking up the shade.

The shadows cast by beech and small-leaved lime trees have a special magic; it's that dappled shade which raises the spirits and calms the blood. With splashes of gold, streaks of emerald and pools of deep, dark greens and browns, the woods have a mood of sanctuary. Each footstep in the dry leaves sound much too loud. The shadows have their own quiet energy, they force you to be still or leave. And if you stay, the shadows overpower your thoughts; the woods are nourished by much more than sunlight alone.