"Astronomically-based Autumn" (based on the autumn equinox) rather than the "meteorological autumn" (based on the Gregorian calendar months) starts tomorrow this year, on September 23rd (rather than September 1st in the meteorological calendar).

So this means today was officially the last day of summer 2014.

What a superb summer and WHAT a glorious final day of summer we had today.

I haven't checked the jet-stream forecast for a wee while, but I heard a rumour today that this settled weather may continue for a while yet - fine by me.

• I spent the last day of summer 2014 (today) in rural Hampshire at my forest base, where I watched nuthatches at very close quarters, as well as bold young mistle thrushes steal berries from low boughs above my head.

• A single-lane country drive home on a different route (the A31 has been blocked all day after an accident) meant I got to drive through some stunning Hampshire countryside under cloudless blue skies. 

• I watched six buzzards spiral over the farmlands below in an invisible thermal - the light reminded me of watching griffon vultures doing the same over Cyprus.

• The leaves on our garden poplars are beginning to fall now, but still we've had no appreciable rain all month - the ground is rock hard in the warm afternoons, even though it is covered with heavy dew each morning.

• A starling roosted in our eaves for the first time since it abandoned its nest there in June.I assume this was the male starling last night (it was the female that was killed in the late spring, during her second nest, which meant the male abandoned his three nestlings). It was a cool night at about 5c - I assume that is why the bird roosted "inside" for the first time in months.

• Carder bees are still nesting in our compost heap - but they seem to be getting a little slower on the wing these days and regularly stop for "breathers" on the 8 foot oak sapling planted next to the compost heap.
• We still have two or three pipistrelle bats hunting over the garden each dusk - wonderful things to watch and I guess they're making serious "hay" whilst this warmth lasts.
• There is one leaf-cutter bee still visible to me in the garden - a dead female, upside down in her bamboo bee hotel. She'll be there until her body breaks down, next spring I assume and she is removed by another bee or a spider perhaps. A bit sad really - I do hope she managed to lay some eggs and fulfill her very short life's purpose.

• Common darter and migrant hawker dragonflies (always the latest) are still hawking over the garden and warming themselves on strategic perches around the pond.

• I checked "my" elephant hawk-moth pupa this afternoon after returning home from work. Other than last night, it has been so mild recently I was worried that we might have an adult moth emerging months early from its winter pupa. I'm glad to say that it looks very healthy and a bit wriggly - so all is well there I think. It's now in the shed... waiting for a warm April I hope.

• My wife and I took our toddler son to a local park yesterday and two swallows floated by overhead - chattering to each other. The last swallows I saw in 2013 were on 24th September, so I wonder if these two "sky-jewels" will be the last this year?

• I watched 50 or so house martins noisily fill the sky a couple of dusks ago. Wonderful to see. They'll all be migrating south now - ahead of the warm weather and continued food.

• Big house spiders and crane flies continue to invade the house and giant slugs fill the lawns and borders at night. All giant because of the warmth this year and last winter.

• Next doors adolescent foxes will, in the next few weeks set off from the den and their mother's territory to find territories new. I'll really have to watch out for our hens during this time.

Finally.... my normal date for hearing my first redwings overhead at night is October 10th - so I've over two and a half weeks before that happens. I wonder if they'll be a little later this year if the weather in Scandinavia and the harvest (of berries and insects) is as bountiful up there as it is down here).  Time will tell I guess.

So 'see ya' summer.

You've been SUPERB this year.

And hello there Autumn.

You've A LOT to live up to....

Crimson sunset