Summary of August 2011
Weather
The month started started with very mixed weather, some days being very wet, others quite hot and humid. By the end of the first week it was raining every day and stayed that way for the second week of August. By the third week it was a little better but still not reliable and in the last week some sun was soon followed by rain. In general a very poor summer and a poor August.
Garden
Some signs that the local birds are coming out of hiding with the Blue Tits and Great Tits returning and the Dunnock being increasingly evident. On 7th August there was a very unusual sight in the garden when a large mixed flock of birds descended on the feeders. For more on this see the entry click here.
“The Running Sky” is one of those bird books that belongs to the “emotional” or “aesthetic” tradition of natural history writings. In twelve chapters, one for each month of the year starting in June, Dee relates stories from a lifetime of birding. In his own words “it follows a single year of (birds) from one summer to the next; it begins with nests and eggs and chicks on the sea cliffs of Shetland, and it ends, a year later with nests, eggs and chicks in the holes of an oak wood on Exmoor.” A mixture of acute observation of both people and birds, this book relates a selection of experiences from over 40 years of birding.