August 2024: Quick Roundup
Snapshots from a busy month.
Sunny, humid and often bright: summer in abundance this month, but with some telling signs of a season on the wane.
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Trimming/harvesting lavender, garden
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A bright and often warm month with many evenings spent by river, broad or sea.
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Swan and cygnets at the far bank, river Yare
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Warham fort
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Red clover
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Eyeing up the elderberries, garden.
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Sunset pink on the birch
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Tomatoes ripened at the start of the month and proliferated throughout it: a bumper crop.
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Tomatoes and basil from the garden
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In-season local cherries were baked in a cake, an enjoyable summer treat.
My own cherry trees are immature: will they bear blossom (and perhaps fruit) next year?
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Homemade cherry and pistachio cake
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| Larkspur |
Grasshoppers stridulated from the front garden; crickets chirruped from the back.
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A 'Gertrude Jekyll' scented bed for this cricket
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Mystery fruit tree
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I located a mystery fruit tree which might or might not relate to something half-remembered from childhood. This gnarled little tree was suffering in the heat; I returned with secateurs and took some cuttings.
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Lunch among the nettles
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Between the wildflowers
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Field Scabious, Knapweed
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Mid-month, smoke from wildfires in North America drifted across, high in the atmosphere, causing some dramatic visions of the sun and moon when rising and setting.
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A orange waxing half-moon
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Green Woodpecker juveniles
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Waders continued to trickle through and passed overhead from their breeding grounds.
Geese convened their flocks.
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| Green Sandpipers |
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Greylag Geese
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Canada Geese
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Cherry plums for the foraging
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Small, sweet and juicy: cherry plums were foraged from hedgerows, whilst named varieties continued to be bought from the local plum orchard.
'Discovery' apples ripened mid-month, enjoyed fresh or grated into birchers.
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'Discovery' apples
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The third of four full moons of this summer: a blue moon.
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Almost full 'blue' moon
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Fly-by Spoonbill
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Cattle in the reeds
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Mixture of clouds at sunset
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A named storm pressed overhead towards the end of month, and lingered all day until evening.
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| Storm clouds |
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| Great White Egrets |
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Chinese Water Deer
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Great White Egrets preening
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Great White Egrets
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Great White Egret
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Bowed reeds
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Greylag geese at sunset
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| Sunset |
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Three Spoonbills (Little Egret flying)
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Spoonbills, sun-fall.
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Crows after sundown.
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On the 25th, a sense of transition was felt, reflecting the changing seasons.
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British white cattle
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Pheasants at sunrise
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Spoonbills, Little and Great White Egrets and geese (Greylag, Canada, Egpytian) were most present on many of my walks. Cranes were seen, distantly this month.
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5 Spoonbills feeding on the marsh
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Sweep sweep sweep Spoonies
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Marsh Harrier
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Mirrored: Chinese Water Deer
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Cygnet called home to the reeds
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Egyptian geese
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More numerous Egyptian Geese and particularly Canada geese noticed in few years.
Two Swifts were seen close by a flock of House Martin, a pleasant surprise so late in their season.
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Swift
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Waning half moon, fly-by House Martin
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I scouted for Hazel nuts, but very few were found on trees or the ground below them!
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Old Hazel tree
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| Glade |
Amongst this year's lambs feeding on the grasses, one small lamb still nursed.
At Blickling, only 4 of the 5 Cygnets seen last month were sighted.
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Calling -- Green Sandpipers
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Feeding in gentle blues and pinks.
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Looking east over the treetops
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Looking north over the water
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Looking west over the water
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| Whimbrel |
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Starling juveniles
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Settling down
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Last meal (plus baguette) of August 2024.
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The tomatoes continued ripening in abundance and so it was right to finish the month with a simple seasonal treat from an appreciably-sunny month.
