Give me sunshine

Yesterday, I picked my first bramble of the year. Purple-black amid the blush of ripening haws and hips, it signaled the end of summer. 

The swallows are gathering, twittering on the telephone lines.Their constant tweeting must be significant unlike that of their human counterparts. Are they reinforcing family bonds before their long flight south? 

The swifts would have gone by now if they had ever been - there have been no swifts around the village for years - but the swallows and, to a much lesser extent, the house martins still dominate the summer skies.
 Now, they perch on the wires, waiting for whatever sign it is that tells them the time has come, a trigger to their senses that says Go!   Every evening they congregate then one day...they're gone...every single one and summer is at an end.

Autumn approaches though its "close bosom friend, the maturing sun" has been conspicuous by his absence for most of the summer. Perhaps the poet's evocation will persuade him to give us an Indian summer. The apples and plums have cropped well, presumably swelled by the amount of rainwater falling on the roots.

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core

A little sun would help.

Thistledown and Rosebay willow herb seeds are blowing in the soft southerly winds, thousands of tiny parachutes, drifting in every open window.

Butterflies and dragon flies are still aplenty in the Rackhamesque woods near the little loch but they too, love the sun.

The weird shapes of the pollarded woods

All nature laughs in the sunshine.*

* Anne Bronte