August 2023
Changeable days, below-average temperatures and a wind-down to autumn.
A wet month with some sunlight and humidity.
Moulting birds hide away; there's no singing but for the woodpigeons and collared doves cooing. Juvenile Herring gulls keen, a sound of school summer holidays. Grasshoppers and crickets are busy in long grasses by day; by dusk moths and bats flutter and swoop. Most mornings, a moth head or wing is found.
Autumn's in the long shadows and cool air of mornings. Swallows and House martins are seen at the start of the month, my last Swift the 8th. Long-tailed Tits call along with Blue and Great, not only a sound of woodland, but an indicator that the tit flocks have reconvened after the breeding season.
The flickering wingtips of a Swift seen on the 8th, my last for this summer.
River Yare
Berry and flower on one stem. Holly, garden.
The Wood pigeon pair finally succeed in raising an offspring after two nest moves and many fallen eggs from the Wisteria.
The roses put out their second blooms, welcome fragrance and colour. A yellow rose and a Congo cockatoo houseplant are bought in honour of my sorely-missed cockatiel Maxi who died on the 4th.
Cornflower seedhead
Bright silver gleams from the gravel; a cornflower seedhead, looking very much like a lost piece of jewellery, an ancient sunburst.
The flowers new and spent make a for a celestial display.
Robins start singing again, short and sweet phrases that are very welcome to hear.
By the end of the month, pheasants crow and tawny owls call. One night, two males call, then after some silence a female calls, then silence once more. In the middle of one night, a female calls very startlingly loud from the back garden.
The season of plenty begins. Blackberries, haws, hops and damsons are in abundance.
Intensely bright to the naked eye, the full moon rises for the second time this month, a "blue moon". With cold air and calling tawny owls, autumn feels very close at hand.
My sounds of August
Woodpigeons
Collared Doves
Blue and great tits cheeping
Grasshoppers and crickets.
