August is a month of peak activity and transition in the natural world — the last fling of summer, the time of great ripening,
The light changes noticeably in August. Daylight loss accelerates by nearly 2 minutes a day, totaling nearly an hour of lost daylight by month’s end. The sun begins sitting lower in the sky, changing how shadows fall. Even as summer temperatures linger, the rapid shift in solar luminosity signals a turn toward autumn.
Plants and animals keenly sense the diminishing light, which acts as a master biological clock that triggers changes such as migration, shifting hormone levels and winter coat growth.
Here’s a small sample of what’s happening with Georgia’s wildlife as we head into August:
New feathers
It’s prime time for one of the most crucial processes in the lives of birds — a complete molt, in which old, worn-out feathers are replaced with spiffy new ones at the end of the breeding season. By keeping feathers healthy, molting keeps birds in top flying condition and helps them stay warm and dry. For migratory birds, a new set of feathers is vital tomake their long journeys south.
A full molt requires a lot of energy, so most birds time their feather replacements to avoid other periods of high energy demands, such as nesting or migration. Not surprisingly, birds can look very scruffy when molting; also, they become quieter as they stay low to hide from predators while temporarily lacking some flight feathers.
Another reason for the silence among birds is now, with their breeding season over, their sex hormone levels have plummeted — leaving males with little desire or need to sing to defend territories and attract mates.
Birds are already southbound
Fall migration for several Georgia birds, including orchard orioles, purple martins, ruby-throated hummingbirds and prothonotary warblers, already is underway. Onllne monitoring websites like BirdCast will begin tracking these movements on Saturday. Conservation groups like Birds Georgia will begin their fall “Lights Out” campaigns on Aug. 15 to help migratory birds find their way. Most of the birds fly at night and use the stars to navigate; artificial lights can disorient them and throw them off course.
A banner year for sea turtles
On Georgia’s coast, biologists are elated over what’s shaping up to be a record year for loggerhead sea turtle nests on barrier island beaches. Experts are projecting more than 4,700 nests by the end of August, when the five-month nesting season ends. The previous historic high was 4,072 nests set in 2022. Loggerheads are protected by state and federal laws.
Now, countless newly hatched baby sea turtles are digging out of their sandy nests and scurrying across the beaches to try to reach the ocean before predators like raccoons and wild hogs can snatch them. The newborn turtles look for the brightest direction, which is the open moonlit horizon over the ocean — a reason to keep beaches free of artificial lights.
More reptile hatching
Another great hatching is taking place in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp and other South Georgia wetlands as thousands of baby alligators emerge from their nests. The newly-hatched gators can be heard “clucking” to their mothers, which fiercely guard their young.
Gopher tortoises (Georgia’s state reptile) are hatching in sandy uplands of the Coastal Plain. Hatching, too, are baby box turtles, pond sliders, eastern mud turtles and other freshwater turtle species. Across the state, snakes are at their highest numbers now through September, with babies of most of the state’s 46 snake species hatching out or being born live.
Preparing for autumn in August
White-tailed deer bucks are shedding velvet from new antlers in preparation for their breeding season starting in October. Gray squirrels are raising their second litters of the year. Black bear mating season is nearly over; by late August, bears will be searching for and eating lots of food to get them through winter.
Blooming wildflowers
Beginning to bloom are the gorgeous wildflowers of late summer and fall — goldenrods, asters, gentians, iron weed, Joe-pye weed, lobelia, Queen Anne’s lace, blazing star, hairy false foxglove, jewelweeds and others.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, retired Tellus Science Museum astronomer. The moon will be last quarter on Tuesday and new on Aug. 12. Over the next two weeks, Mercury and Mars are low in the east just before sunrise. Venus is low in the west just after dark. Saturn rises in the east a few hours after dark. One of the year’s best meteor showers, the Perseid, will peak at about 50 meteors per hour after dark in the northeast sky on Aug.12-14.
Charles Seabrook can be reached at charles.seabrook@yahoo.com.
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