Post 441 - The Four Seasons

Autumn colours starting to show at Silton Forest

Hey everyone, Post 441 today and as it's Autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere (and Spring for you guys down in the Southern) I thought it would be a good time to do a post that I'm surprised I haven't done yet. Also, with my grandparents coming up from Birmingham I haven't had as much time as usual to get out and explore the world this weekend and I thought it would be an idea to do something that you can experience from your window. In case you haven't guessed already I'm talking about the Seasons! As I've been travelling around I've been looking out of the car window at signs of the seasons and I started to wonder what caused them.

Berries everywhere - all sorts of colours!

Dragon and Damsel hunting always
makes me think of summer 

Summer meadows!

Firstly, a question that I myself cannot answer: What is your favourite Season? I have no idea what mine is, I like them all for different reasons, and during each one I seem to prefer it! Probably as I'm out enjoying it and seeing what I can find. In terms of nature hunting, I would probably say Spring as you have all the migratory birds coming in, the flowers and plants are coming up and all of the bugs are starting to come out onto the plants. Things are coming alive rather than preparing for winter, but that's what makes Autumn great too. You get more birds on the move heading to their winter sites, plants are producing fruits and seeds to feed birds and mammals as they prepare for winter.

Frost and cobwebs at Silton forest

Anyway, onto how the seasons are caused. Simply it's all about how the Earth rotates and how the sun hits the different parts of the globe. The earth rotates on an axis which you can imagine as a big pole going through the Earth from North pole to South pole and the spinning causes day and night. The Earth also takes a year to rotate around the sun but because the Earth is on an axis that is a bit tilted (nobody really knows why though... :) different parts of the Earth face the sun more directly at different times of the year. Because of this around the June Solstice the North Pole is tilted more towards the Sun and the Northern Hemisphere gets more of the light and heat over June, July and August while the Southern Hemisphere gets it in December, January and February.

One of my favourite winter frosty pics from my garden

It is not distance from the sun that causes seasons it is just the angles at which we face the sun, you get more of the sun's energy spread over a smaller area in the summer. It's like if you were in space with no suit you would be burned on one side and frozen on the other, although thanks to our atmosphere it isn't that bad here.


Even though there is such a small difference between the distance from the sun in the two hemispheres solar energy is more effective to collect when more directly facing the sun but as there aren't many landmasses and as it takes longer for the sea to warm up the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Summers have almost no temperature difference.

Lambs! Enjoying the spring sun.

The Earth's Path around the sun is not circular and the sun isn't at the centre of its path the whole time so this obviously means that the Earth is closer to the Sun at some times of the year than others. So this does mean that some places on the globe are hotter in the different seasons.


As I was travelling around I saw several signs of the season, which you are probably seeing too but I thought I'd highlight some of my favourites of each season:

Winter - Snow falling - Frost Forming - Crisp mornings - Trees with no Leaves

Spring - Flowers coming out again - Insects being seen - Migratory birds passing through

Spring flowers and insects

Summer - Insects everywhere! - A little bit less rain :)

Autumn - Leaves starting to go brown and orange - The nights coming in - Berries everywhere - birds feeding and migrating - A profusion of fungi!


Anyway, I hope I have wrapped up well for you how the seasons work and I hope you enjoy whatever season you're going into!


Hope you enjoyed,


Z.