I blog about nature in the Norfolk countryside and about my wildlife garden. My blog blends digital photos with an analogue nature journal.
Nature journalling blends nature observation and citizen science with a written diariy or art journal to build a deeper connection with nature and cultivate curiosity, creativity and flow.
I was quite relieved to welcome in September, which started with much cooler temperatures and plenty of rain showers. Its funny how in summer you almost forget what cooler, rainier days are like.
There is now talk of a “super El Niño” bringing autum storms, severe late winter weather and intense heat next summer. We shall see…
Nature journalling the lovely blue skies of a fresher September weather
Wow! What an amazing summer it has been. East Anglia's average maximum temperature was almost 3 degrees warmer than last year. Unfortunately the hot, dry conditions saw a surge in wildfires with the Norfolk force attending 1,295 incidents during the month.
My month end phenology wheel for the crazy record breaking month of July 2026 here in Norfolk.
Nature journaling the extreme (for UK) weather conditions both heat and drought, which are massively impacting our wildlife garden at the moment.
An area of high pressure was settled over England for much of the month leading to warmish days and chilly nights. Insanely dry for Spring with just 31mm of rain, the pond nearly dried out!
With our 5 year old Davis weather-station failing, it was time to splash out on a new weatherstation. I was excited to find a Bresser "Meteochamp 9-in-1" so I can now also measure light and cloud cover ars well as getting wind measurements again. I discovered "AWEKAS" weather server too - a fun retro data visualisation site based in Austria. It will be interesting to see if there is much difference, though we can't run them side by side to calibrate.
A very cold snap from 4th to 6th January brought a lot of visitor birds into the garden foraging for food, including this song thrush on 5th that I watched work his way along the hedgerow.
On 6th I had my best ever sighting of a male Bullfirich who perched on the hedgrow for some time, occasionally taking a blackberry or ivy fruit or seeds. Overnight on 5th we recorded -8.7°c ! That's the coldest temperature since we first got the weather station in December 2020.
I thought it might be interesting to see November and December weather wheels side by side. After a mild start to November temperatures declined steadily into winter proper, punctuated by storm Claudia in November, which brought epic rainfall of 51mm in a day and storm Bram in December .
Another exceptionally dry month seemed to lead to an early Autumn, with trees and bushes fruiting and dropping their leaves earlier than usual. Rosa sampled the ripe black-berries on 22nd and I spotted sloes on 25th.
After another short hot spell, the second half of the month wars however markedly cooler, with wet weather arriving in the last few days of the month.
"Flaming June was an apt description this year, with 17 days peaking. above 25°c! The month max average was 3.8°c (17%) higher than the 21-24 average figure and 5.1 °c (25%) up on last year.