August 2026
Single logs from this month:
Just like the past two months, August was plagued by heat waves and unusually cold temperatures especially towards the end of the month. The July drought also continued and only lessened towards the end of August, prompting an unexpected recovery of some important plants. Despite most insects having declined sharply, some others began to recover by the end of the month.
Species that already were seen in July and returned:
- Aglais io
- Araschnia levana
- Celastrina argiolus
- Coenonympha pamphilus
- Maniola jurtina
- Pieris napi
- Pieris rapae
- Polyommatus icarus
- Vanessa atalanta
- Vanessa cardui
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- Aeshna cyanea
- Coenagrion mercuriale
Species that were last seen in May and returned:
- Issoria lathonia
Species making their first appearances:
- Polyommatus coridon (single individual)
The absent P. bellargus did not develop a (partial) third generation at all, making P. icarus the only blue of August (minus an unconfirmed C. minimus.
Every zone saw catastrophic declines that turned out to be even worse than during my childhood. Zone I, already badly affected by the March fire, has mostly dried out, similarly to most spots in Zone II. Zone III, while still wetter than the rest, suffered from both poor harvesting times (Eastern section) and excessive humidity paired with hot temperatures (Western section). Only Mixed Field, Zone II and III began to recover by the end of the month.
The biggest catastrophe – and I didn't have to visit it to see just how bad its state has become – is the "Bog Hill". Not only has the entire hill become a deep brown "blob" sticking out like a sore thumb, whatever was left of its artificial "steppe" that was meant to be protected vanished, as well – if they ever occurred in somewhat stable numbers, mind you. As most German states have begun to push for a de-facto abolishment of its transparency laws, most information regarding Natura 2000 sites that already was sparse and largely only available upon request (that also often required to pay a hidden fee), no information regarding its re-mapping in 2025 have been published, so far. Any newer information supposed to be addressing the current development of all sites point to a GIS web app that hasn't seen any updates since its inception, meaning it still lacks the vast amount of data it is supposed to bundle. Besides general map data like borders and area names, only very vague and undefined labels are available – no species data whatsoever and no management updates, which have stayed the same since 2011. But even the latter are a mere artifact as those management plants practically never have been followed through nor controlled by the state of Thuringia. Even worse, some management recommendations were applied to areas completely unrelated to the Natura 2000 sites and one spot in particular (the abandoned field in Zone I) was "managed" by two unrelated actors without any coordination whatsoever, effectively having turned it into yet-another pasture that gets both grazed and mowed with heavy machinery and thus offering less than a handful of plants.
Naturally, the blocked bike path still is undergoing road work, yet no further announcement has been made and so has begun to attract tourists again. The path is now bigger than before and its grassy sides barely exist anymore. The field mentioned above was used as a free parking lot by tourists during the sun eclipse. And while most pears taste good, most plums are sour to completely inedible.
/oblog/