When does autumn begin and end?
The answer depends on whether you’re a meteorologist or an astronomer.
Weather buffs divide up the year into 3-month quarters, with autumn starting on 1 September and finishing on 30 November.
Astronomers’ preferred start date is the autumn equinox, when the hours of day and night are approximately equal. For technical reasons beyond the scope of this article, that date wobbles around a bit, but this year autumn will begin on 22 September and end on 21 December with the winter solstice.
Dragonfly Gifts have decided to celebrate the new season with an A-board drawing of the little-known Bang’s mountain squirrel (Syntheosciurus brochus), photographed in the wild top-right, and on Broughton Street below.
This appropriately named creature lives on a Costa Rican volcano at an altitude of 6,200–8,500 ft, depending on the size of the tree. For reasons known only to themselves, Dragonfly staff have decided to show it during an eruption.
Chocolate manufacturers don’t really care about the niceties of seasonal timings. They reckon people eat more chocolate when it’s cold, which explains why these winter-themed Heroes have been on sale in Tesco Broughton Road since at least mid-August.
If you have interesting or seasonally inappropriate observations to share, we’d love to hear from you.
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[Image top-right: Benjamin Smith, Wikimedia, Creative Commons.]
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