Page 35 - Silver Lakes September 2021

NATURE

SPRING IN SOUTH AFRICA

By James Clarke, birding photographs by Mary Broadley

Somebody spotted this – one of the two days each year when • Summer (approximately 89 days) begins
6 November
sign outside a nursery: the hours of sunshine and the hours of • Autumn (approximately 92 days) begins
darkness are equal (the equinoxes).
3 February
Spring is here! I am so Encyclopaedia Britannica agrees with • Winter (approximately 94 days) begins
excited I wet my plants! Frank. It states that the southern spring 8 May.
begins “on 22 or 23 September”. But
Richard Overy of Roodepoort, who has Richard says the above dates agree very
But when IS spring? taken a lifelong interest in astronomy, tells closely with those given in the 3 400 year
I was told on good authority that, me that the dates upon which the seasons old Chinese calendar. The Chinese call
technically, spring began last month - on begin and end "are often based more on the four seasons (beginning with spring)
8 August and that summer begins on emotion than logic". He agrees that spring Lichun, Lixia, Liqiu and Lidong and say
6 November. began weeks ago, on 8 August, and that they begin on 4 February, 6 May, 8 August
mid-spring is at the equinox. and 8 November. Can 1,2 billion Chinese
A reader, Frank Regment, disagrees be wrong?
and quotes several dictionaries to back The seasons are:
his assertion that spring begins in the • Spring (which lasts approximately 90 So until some expert arbitrates, the answer,
southern hemisphere on 21 September days) begins 8 August like spring itself, must remain in the air.

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