The Natural World: Autumnal Facts
Autumn is one of the four seasons, that goes after summer and before winter and it is all about huge changes in our environment and nature affecting plants, animals, and birds (we have all heard about the saying flora and fauna).
But autumn can also be fun too with lots of activities outdoors, it can bring lots of different colours to people’s lives – red, orange, yellow brown and many more. The temperature becomes colder, and days become shorter. Almost all the trees start to change their colour in autumn.
Animals start their preparation for colder months and plants stop making food, everything in nature slowly starts to fall asleep.
Autumnal season is renowned for rainfall, but the main sign of autumn is when leaves start to change their colour, and everything becomes more spectacular and beautiful.
Plants drop their seeds on the ground which some animals eat or take to prepare for the winter period.
Autumn is also a time for harvest. Gardeners and farmers collect their apples, pears, corn, vegetables and other crops, because the first frost can come suddenly and all the efforts to growing them will all be in vain.
Days become shorter and nights become longer… Everyone knows that Autumn always brings rainy days and heavy grey clouds along with it.
Another interesting thing that happens in autumn is a murmuration of starlings. They form into big groups with hundreds, even thousands of birds, swooping and whirling and diving in unison in the sky above your head, it’s an amazing sight!
When the weather starts to get colder, animals that live outside, start to prepare for the winter.
Some animals grow warm coats, rabbits grow thicker fur and that is why they are able to survive in winter, even domestic cats and dogs do this too.
Other animals and insects fall into a deep sleep, called hibernation. Their body temperature becomes lower and this allows them to save energy. Finding shelter is also a good plan to survive the winter for animals, so they go searching for some places to hide, either inside trees, under rocks or underground.
On the day of the autumnal equinox the sun, rises strictly to the east and sets in the west and day is almost equal to night. Autumn will last from September to December and then winter begins…
Written by Chris Smith
