Nature & Weather in Southeast England
August
By Peter Conway
Though it is the classic languid month of our childhood summer holidays, August is actually subtly preparing us for autumn. Nature goes to seed, apples ripen, blackberries tempt us to return to our simian roots. Summer feels intensely sweet, as half of you thinks it will never end, and the other half is shocked that it will soon be over.
WEATHER
August often starts as high summer, with hot sunshine and sticky temperatures that feel quite oppressive. In hot summers, "capitulation" - the moment when you finally get tired of the heat and wish it was autumn - can occur during the first week of August.
For the rest of the month, the weather depends on how strong the Azores High is. If it gets established, drifting in over the UK from its usual position to the south west, there is hot sunny weather; if not, cooler, wetter weather comes in off the Atlantic.
When this happens, it can seem as if summer is over, and thoughts become autumnal. On the other hand, cooler weather can be not unwelcome if July has seen a heatwave. And cool is only a relative term here, meaning one feels the need for a second layer in the evenings, but could probably get by without it.
A good year for the Azores High was the exceptional summer of 2003, when the hot sunshine continued throughout the month, with temperatures reaching a record 38.5 degrees. 2005 and 2009 were also good Augusts. In 2005 the first three weeks were mainly sunny, though with more moderate temperatures in the low 20s and rather grey and wet weekends. In 2009, while most days were not entirely cloudless, there was plenty of sunshine throughout the month, with temperatures rising repeatedly into the high 20s and once (on 19 August) to 30 degrees.
In 2006, by contrast, northwesterly winds dominated for the whole of August, bringing in a mix of heavy showers and sunny intervals. This was not entirely unwelcome, as it brought greenery pack to parks and countryside after a dry June and July that had seen grass shrivel to dust, and trees and bushes start to wilt from drought.
August 2008 also had a greening effect, but saw even worse weather, with cool, grey skies dominating for the entire month. There were only three truly sunny days, though thankfully two of them (23 and 30 August) were Saturdays. Of those three days, only the 30th was anything like hot, however (25-27 degrees), and all five Sundays in the month were grey and showery.
More typically, August alternates periods of sunny and greyer weather, however. A common pattern is for a sunny hot start, followed by a week to ten days of cooler, rainier skies, and then a return to hot weather towards the end. This was true in 2001, 2002 and 2004, and in 1999 when the solar eclipse in Cornwall on 11 August was hidden from watchers by 10,000 metres of cloud and light rain. It was also true in 2007, when the first week of August saw the first sustained fine period of what had been a very wet summer, before westerly weather set in on 13 August.
Sunny weather then took a while to return in 2007: it was not until 25 August that there was another proper sunny day, but conveniently that happened to be the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend. The next two days were also hot and sunny. More often, however, the bank holiday weekend starts well and then goes downhill. A fine example was 2001, when the Friday and Saturday were searingly hot and sunny, but the Sunday saw drizzle and the Monday saw cloud. 2002 and 2003 also saw grey bank holiday Mondays, while in 2004 a fine Saturday gave way to a greyer wetter Sunday and a Monday of sunshine and heavy showers.
2006 also saw a bank holiday weekend of mixed sunshine and showers throughout. Only in 2005, when the bank holiday weekend fell unusually late on the 27-29th, did the normal pattern reverse, with a grey Saturday giving way to increasingly hot sunshine on the Sunday and Monday, while in 2009 the hottest day was Monday after a brrezy but sunny Saturday and cloudy Sunday
If an autumnal feel has not set in before (and it did from quite early in the month in 2007 and 2008), it will definitely do so over the August bank holiday, which invariably marks the point at which you realise summer is definitively over.
Having said that, the week after bank holiday is almost always sunny, if less hot than before: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 all followed this pattern, with a week of golden week of sunshine following the bank holiday weekend. Even 2006 managed a couple of fine days on the Tuesday and Wednesday. In 2007 high pressure was firmly in place – a most unusual event that summer – but being situated to the west of the UK it brought quite cloudy weather to the south east. 2008 was a notable exception to all this, of course, with the weather remaining cool and grey in the last week of the month, while in 2009, the week after bank holiday (which was the first week of September), saw high winds, cooler temperatures and some rain.
Sometimes summer heat returns in this post-bank holiday week – for example, temperatures climbed to 32 degrees in 2005, with sultry nights of 18-19 degrees, and 2004 also saw a muted version of the same thing. But even if this is the case, there is a poignant feel to the hot weather, which you know will not last. The sun is now getting low and golden in the afternoon, early mornings and evenings start to feel a bit nippy (ie you definitely do put that extra layer on), and the bedclothes go back on the bed. The endless days of high summer seem suddenly far away.
You also start to feel like sitting in the sun once more, rather than retreating to the shade. You can leave your hat and sun tan cream at home. Morning dew appears on the grass or on the seats on the station, and the ground becomes slightly damp (in July even after a downpour, it is dry as a bone).
The sun starts to be low enough to slant in windows again. You suddenly notice that the evenings are drawing in rapidly. Sunset mid month is at 8.25 pm, and it is starting to be dark at 8pm. By the end of the month, lighting up time is back to 7.55 pm, and the sun only comes up at 6 am.
Despite the cooler feel to the weather at the end of August, the sea still remains warm enough for swimming - indeed, it is now at its best, and remains so well into September. (After the cool summers of 2007 and 2008 it was less warm than in previous years, however.)
NATURE NOTES
- The harvest month: fruits, nuts, seeds, a plethora of berries
- Birdsong is almost silent
- Flowers and insects start to slowly fade away
For pictures of the flowers and fruits mentioned here, see the photos to the right of this page. Put your cursor over any photo to see its caption. More photos are available on Flickr: simply click on any photo to see them: this also gives you a larger view of the photo. In addition Wikipedia has photos and more information on many plants.
One thinks of September as month of fruitfulness, but in fact August is the month of harvest, and of fruits, nuts and berries. Early in August you see corn cut, and as the month progresses even cornfields ploughed up - an unmistakable sign of autumn. Apples groan on branches, and blackberries are at their best - though by the end of the month they are often over or at least past their best. Otherwise nature is wrapping up and winding down, with flowers and insects slowly disappearing during the month - though some last well into September
A plethora of berries
Blackberries apart, berries are everywhere you look in August, particularly towards the end of the month. Most obvious are the red haws on hawthorn bushes, which ripen around the middle of the month and can cover it’s branches by the month’s end. Note also the pretty orange berries on rowan trees, which ripen to red around the middle of the month. Rosehips (the fruits of wild rose bushes) also mature in the second half, and you can see sloes on blackthorn bushes – as well as their more palatable relatives, wild plum, damsons, greengages, and cherry plums (the latter only fruiting in warm summers in the UK).
Other less obvious berries might catch your eye. The wayfaring tree – a common shrub on downland – has berries that turn red, and then black towards the end of the month. Dogwood is a shrub with black berries, while the distinctive snowberry produces large white globes around the middle of the month. Unnoticed, yew trees also produce red berries, and, where it has been allowed to flower, privet produces green berries.
If you see a climber with red berries towards the end of the month, it is quite likely to be honeysuckle, though you can also see black bryony (a member of the yam family) and white bryony (a member of the marrow family) with red berries too (all can still be in flower early in August). Black clusters of elderberries are ubiquitous in the second half of the month, and the lurid orange seed heads of cuckoo pint continue to provide a striking sight in woods and hedgerows.
Flowers fade - sort of
August is almost like an open season for flowers, when any plant that thinks it has not had a sufficient flowering season makes up for lost time. Many July flowers continue well into August and even into September, and some that have gone over, return in places. August also has some flowers of its own, and just to confuse matters further, you also get some spring flowers having another go, apparently mistaking the season.
Downland flowers
July chalk grassland flowers that may last into August include weld, mignonette, betony, mullein, agrimony, restharrow, eyebright, ladies bedstraw, majoram, basil, basil thyme, squinacywort, black meddick, yelllow melliot, St John’s wort, the heather-like red bartsia, and clover (both red and white). Look closely in the grass and all kinds of tiny cranesbills are also still common
Ones that can still be often seen at the end of the month include knapweed, field scabious, birdsfoot trefoil, self-heal and ragwort. Umbellifers (ie cow-parsley-like plants) include some hogweed early in the month, and throughout the month yarrow, burnet saxifrage, hedge parsley and wild carrot, whose flower heads curl up into a brown ball when they go over. Wild parsnip can still be found in flower early in the month, and this is also the month you can see clustered bellflowers on the downs.
If you see a flower on the downs that looks like a dandelion, only with squared ends to the petals, then it is most likely a hawkbit, hawksbeard or catsear - a confusing family of flowers which all look much the same. Catsear can be identified by a greenish underside to its petals and tiny scale-like growths near the top of the stem, while lesser hawkbit grows only one flower per stalk and has a greyish-purple underside to the petals. A reddish underside to the petals could be autumn hawkbit (the most common hawkbit, which also has tiny scales near the top of the stem), but if the stem is hairy rough hawkbit is possible. Lastly, a reddish underside to the petals with more than one flower per stalk could be smooth hawksbeard, another very common flower. Others of this family can be found on wasteground (see below). All these flowers can last well into the autumn.
Wasteground and verges
Rosebay willowherb – that glory of July wasteground – can remain in flower right through August, but it is past its best with flowers right at the tip of a seedy stem. The much less spectacular great willowherb also lasts the month in places. Other stalwarts include common mallow and musk mallow, both of which can be found throughout the month, and you may be lucky to see wonderful blue chicory.
By the side of railway tracks, you can still see plenty of budleia (top photo) in flower early in the month (it is a bush not a flower, but fits in better here!), as well as evening primrose, ragwort and Canadian goldenrod. By the end of the month only the goldenrod and a bit of budleia remains, but from mid month one might see the purple daisy flowers of michelmas daisies, which last well into September
There are also various rougher members of the hawkweed/hawksbeard family on verges, wastegrounds and even in odd corners in urban settings, and another flower in this category is bristly oxtongue, which is particularly common by the sea. All these last well into autumn, as do yellow crucifers (from the cabbage family) such as hedge mustard, black mustard, hoary mustard and even charlock. Everyone’s least favourite flower, thistles, go over early in August, however, filling the air with their seeds.
On softer verges, the fuzzy pink heads of hemp agrimony (not to be confused with the utterly different agrimony, which is a yellow spike) is common until around the middle of the month. You can also find tansy during the month, and the aptly-named everlasting sweet pea, with its striking pink flowers. That lasts into September as does bindweed, whose large white trumpets grace many hedgerows and wastegrounds, the flowers closing up tightly at night.
Two flowers with unexciting names but which are striking to look at are common fleabane and common toadflax. Both are characteristic August wayside flowers, which can linger into September. Look out also for hedge woundwort and black horehound, both of which should be long gone by now, but somehow manage to pop up from time to time.
Hedgerows will also likely be graced with traveller’s joy – wild clematis – which is flowering at the start of the month and seeding to become old man’s beard by its end (though oddly in 2007 it did not come out in many places till mid August, nor go over till mid September). Another striking climber is the invasive Japanese knotweed, a mass of lovely white flowers right through August, and especially towards its end.
Note too that ivy flowers start to bud (though not open) in the second half of August: they will flower in September and October and not fruit till December or January. On heathland, this is the peak month for heather.
Arable fields, woods, and streams
On arable field edges, scentless mayweed and corn chamomile can be found right through the month, as can the eternal pineapple weed. Bistort can also be seen till mid month at least. If you see what looks like a blue buttercup on a field edge, it is flax, probably a crop escapee. You may also see meadow clary and various others of this family, the ethereal white spike of vervain, or spikes of purple toadflax.
In the woods you can continue to see enchanter’s nightshade in flower till mid month, and herb robert blooming right to the end. Look out also for a flower with large leaves and tiny yellow flowers – this is small balsam. Shady spots also produce the interesting devil’s bit scabious, with its large leaves, and yellow pimpernel, which trails along the ground.
Streams remain choked with lovely but invasive Himalayan (or Indian) balsam, and this is also the month for the tall spikes of purple loosestrife (bottom photo). In damp spots, various mints grow – in particular water mint, with its double globes of pink flowers. By the sea, rock samphire is in flower.
Spring flowers come again
For reasons best known to themselves, some early spring flowers have a second go at flowering in late August and early September. Whether this is because they mistake the season, or because for some reason they did not get to flower back in March or April when they should have, is a mystery. Plants you can see include buttercup, dandelion (not to be confused with the hawkbits and hawksbeards mentioned above), white deadnettles, tormentil, silverweed, lesser stitchwort, scarlet pimpernel, the climber clematis montana, and, by the sea, red valerian and yellow-horned poppy.
A good time to identify trees
August is a good time to identify trees, because many start to produce distinctive seeds or fruits. Maples and sycamores have their winged seeds which fall to the ground from early in the month onward, and the ground under lime trees gets more and more littered with their distinctive seeds as the month goes on. Acorns lengthen on oak trees, and alders put out new green cone buds, dropping the old ones onto the ground). The round nut cases of sweet chestnuts (spiked) and horse chestnuts (smooth) become increasingly prominent as the month goes on, and you can find hazelnuts on the ground from as early as the second week.
Towards the end of the month in cooler or drier summers you can also see some yellowing leaves on trees – usually just a few that turn and fall, scattering the ground below. Planes, birches, maples, riverside willows and hornbeams all exhibit this behaviour, as do hawthorn, blackthorn and bramble bushes, though in all cases it will be late October before they really lose leaves in earnest.
A peep out of the birds
Birdsong remains eerily silent at the start of August, apart from stalwarts such as sparrows (near buildings, such as farmhouses), and the rasping of magpies. Otherwise, if you hear birds cheeping in August they are likely to be goldfinches, who breed late (you can hear juveniles making their first calls)., or possibly greenfinches.
The reason for the silence of the remaining birds is that the breeding season is now over and there is no need for them to call attention to themselves, but an exception to this is the robin. As soon as they finish breeding, they become aggressively territorial again (both males and females: the breeding pair immediately become rivals once more), and so from mid month you can start to hear their squeaky song. This is tentative at first – the odd snatch – but becomes more widespread and systematic as the month comes to an end.
Other birds become communal again, after pairing off to breed. Most notably in late August, you start to hear blue tits rasping and calling to each other as they feed on bushes and trees. These are probably the source of some of the single cheeps that you hear at this time, though dunnocks, chaffinches and very possibly great tits are other candidates – the dense foliage makes it very difficult to tell.
If you hear excited little squeaks, look up as they are probably coming from the house martins wheeling joyously overhead to catch insects. Theese remain in southern England well into September, but swallows (long forked tails) and swifts (swept back wings) depart for Africa in late August.
Insects fade slowly
Insects slowly become scarcer during the month, but it is very hard to generalise. You can see flies, dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, bees and wasps right to the end of the month (and indeed in the case of bees and butterflies well into September) but they are in general getting less frequent.
Certainly flies don’t seem to be a bother by the end of the month, though wasps can still cause a nuisance if eating a meal outside a pub. Your arms and legs no longer get covered in midge bites, and you can leave a window open at home without little insects invading.
