After a fairly average August, with a modest amount of rain, September began with a fabulous run of warm, sunny days. as high pressure built. Typically with us in such conditions, clouds form from mid morning on, then the wind picks up a little, before from mid afternoon the clouds tend to disappear and the wind drops again to give clear skies and pretty cool nights. Wonderful misty scenes often greet us at dawn. No frosts yet, but down to 3’s and 4’s degree for a few nights.. Our beekeeper neighbour Andy, dropped round a hive late August, (will it survive longer than the first try in winter 2013?) and there are large numbers of honeybees in the garden now. Their primary flower choices being the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’/’Herbstfreude’, Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, Geranium procurrens, and later in the month Persicaria vaccinifolia – all excellent late season nectar sources. Yellow meadow ants in the high meadow chose one of these early sunny September days to swarm. The weather didn’t change significantly until the 24th, when showers returned, just as we’d become desperate for rain. But only for a couple of days, winds then dropping and temperatures staying warm, though daytime cloud cover increased for the last days of the month.    

Just 13.7 mm of rain fell during the month.