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[Page 40]
19/10/15
Observations on the weather here: -
"From October 10 to 14 there is a period of uncertainty; sometimes a south westerly wind, which veers round to the north west and a good rainstorm. The first distinct drop in temperature now takes place (about the 10th to the 14th) one feels autumn in the air, the nights continue fairly warm, and this period continues fine & generally calm up to about the 20th sometimes the 18th or 19th – when a well defined & most absolutely regular period is entered upon.
This spell begins with three or four days of very heavy northernly or north-westernly winds sometimes a gale, generally accompanied by rain for several days and it is this period – from October 20 to October 25 – which is intensely interesting to naturalists owing to the passage of all kinds of birds, the sweeping past of the last of the quails, the arrival of the first woodcock, the clockwork precision of the passage stockdores (pigeons); in fact it is the moment of the big migration, when the air night and day is full of birds on the move.
Towards the end of October, and in the way of a countercoup or reaction to the northerly gales, there is generally experienced a fierce three or four days of southerly winds, sometimes gales. It is to be noted that these gales or changes in the weather are usually of 3 to 7 days duration the first day being the shortest, and for some of these regular winds, the natives have special names November generally, almost always comes in fine with a lovely first ten days or so. It however becomes rather sharp at night and there is to be expected a very marked period now of cold weather – a cold snap in fact. This snap in generally in the second or third week of the month, and only last a few days, the weather going back to fine warm and calm until about the end of the month. Barring such cold snap, the weather is fine and wind is absent, and many people