It does seem silly that October and November are in spring, that March is in autumn, when in our neck of the coast they're decidedly warm and often wiltingly hot. The problem is that our seasons are a fit for what happens in the northern hemisphere, not for what happens in Australia.
The head of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, Tim Entwisle, is proposing a solution that has a much greater value than getting the seasons to fit what actually happens in our world. That extra value is to be had in asserting our independence as a nation with enough collective intelligence to create our own standards, and while we're at it we might take the opportunity to send the Queen a pink slip!
Dr Entwisle proposes that, for the Sydney coastal strip that includes Lake Macquarie, Newcastle and Port Stephens, we move spring forward a month so that it includes the spring flush of flowering. Fancy having spring fit nature! So our spring will be in August and September, just two months; pre-summer will be October and November; peak summer will be December, January, February and March; autumn April and May; and winter June and July.
I'm with him all the way, and not just because I felt spring arrive on Sunday with such force that I spent the day digging and planting my vegetable garden. And someone else who's with him, as I explain at more length in my column in The Herald today, is Kevin McDonald, the Seaham-based co-ordinator of nature observers who pool their notes in a project called Nature Watch.
Where are you? Still stuck in winter?
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