by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Epsom, UK, December 2011: Strange weather we are having and wildlife seems to think the same. In fact birds are singing their mating and territorial songs. Something that should not happen until a few months from now.
Plants too seem to think that spring has come early and many are beginning to act like that too by putting forth new growth.
Only the other day, on Thursday, December 29, 2011, in fact, I discovered that the Blackberry plants in my garden are beginning to flower. Yes, you are reading that right. They have begun to flower, at least once serious cluster, at the end of December (see photo below).
Places in the USA as well that should be having temperature below freezing or thereabouts are still running temperatures more akin of early autumn or of early spring but not of the midst of winter.
The worrying part is that trees and plants, especially crops, will put out growth and then get hit by severe frost that still could be coming our way.
We all remember down here in my part of the country the February of about two years ago when the winter until then had been very mild and suddenly we ended up with lots of snow and temperatures in the minus ten and so range. Water mains froze and burst and things went more than just a little haywire.
The strange weather could be due, no doubt, to what is being referred to now as Climate Change, something where man's activities have not helped, but also to an very powerful alignment of planets. A hyperactive sun also does not help.
Something that we need to watch. The weather and the sun especially, and we need to prepared for the eventualities. Before someone, however, mentions the Mayans and their calendar and the fact that it end in 2012 I don't think that it will. However, the way things look we will be facing a great number of uncertainties, not at least another recession – what you mean another recession... the last one hasn't gone away... and right you are... so let's call it a deepening of the Great Recession) – and the possible – more than likely – break up of the Euro zone (and, maybe, even of the European Union itself).
Add to that the increasing activities of a hyperactive sun, with a solar maximum and flares galore, as well as the alignment of those planets and we could be in for a bumpy ride. No wonder birds, animals and plants are confused.
© 2011
