August 27

Posted by sydney on Aug 27th, 2008
  • 1792: August 27, 1792 – A fern-owl this evening showed-off in a very unusual, & entertaining manner, by hawking round, & round the circumference of my great spreading oak for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the grass but occasionally glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree.  This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular phalaena belonging to the oak, of which there are several sorts; & exhibited on the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.  Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of food: for the next evening we saw one again several times among the boughs of the same tree; but it did not skim round it’s stem over the grass, as on the evening before.  In May these birds find the Scarabaeus melolontha on the oak; & the Scarabaeus solstitialis at Midsummer.  These peculiar birds can only be watched & observed for two hours in the twenty-four, & then in dubious twilight, an hour after sun-set & an hour before sun-rise.
  • 1790: August 27, 1790 – Cold & comfortless weather.
  • 1789: August 27, 1789 – Tho. Holt White comes from Fyfield.
  • 1787: August 27, 1787 – Molly White & Nep. Tom rode to Fyfield.
  • 1786: August 27, 1786 – Made five bottles, & a pint of catsup.
  • 1779: August 27, 1779 – Full moon.  My well is shallow & the water foul.
  • 1778: August 27, 1778 – Selborne people begin hop-picking.  The tops of beeches begin to turn yellow.
  • 1777: August 27, 1777 – The large winged female ants, after they have wandered from their nests lose their wings & settle new colonies: are in their flying state food for birds, particulary hirundines.  No wasps: & if there were, there is no fruit for them.
  • 1776: August 27, 1776 – Grey, sun, sweet day.
  • 1775: August 27, 1775 – 8 more wasps nests; in all 25 have been destroyed round the village.
  • 1773: August 27, 1773 – Vast quantities of nuts & filberts.
  • 1770: August 28, 1770 – Delicate harvest weather.  Many loads of wheat housed.  Great bat appears; flies strongly and vigorously & very high.  I call this rare species vespertilio altivolans.
  • 1770: August 27, 1770 – Sweet harvest-weather.  Wheat in general is light.  Hops grow very fast: a vast crop.
  • 1768: August 27, 1768 – Much wheat housed.  Blue mist.  Yellow-hammers have young still, whcih they feed with tipulae.

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