Birds:

Swallows gather on telephone cables and martins muster in flocks as they prepare for the journey south.
After breeding in highlands pastures or wetlands in Britain or further north, waders return home to river estuaries, whereas some are just passing through on their way back to Africa. Lapwing and golden plover join knot and bar-tailed godwit feeding on the mudflats.
August is a good month to see kingfishers because the chicks have left the nest and often disperse to find new areas of water. The best time to spot these beautiful birds is early morning. Take a walk along a small river or stream and look out for the flash of orange and bright blue plumage. Kingfishers are much smaller than most people imagine and are barely bigger than a sparrow!
August 12th marks the start of the red grouse shooting season. The red grouse is one of the few birds only found in the UK. Many upland moors have survived because they have been managed for grouse and a moor managed by strip burning creates a mosaic of tall and short heather and can also support other birds such as golden plover, meadow pipit, skylark and birds of prey including short-eared owl, merlin and hen harrier. The Bowland Fells are the only regular breeding ground for hen harriers in England.

Mammals:

Watch bats feed on insects over water during the night. See if your local bat group, the Wildlife Trust or the Council’s ranger service is running a bat night on your local nature reserve or country park.
Early this month grey squirrels are impatient and insist on cracking open the unripe pale green hazel nuts, even though there is little reward inside. They can be heard chattering and squealing at each another. Aggressive confrontations can lead to tree top chases, which can be amusing to watch.

Amphibians and reptiles:

The last of the Natterjack toadlets leave the water.

Invertebrates:

The black/yellow striped caterpillars of the cinnabar moth feed on ragwort, absorbing the chemicals which are poisonous to horses and livestock, especially if they eat the dried plant in hay. The stripes are nature’s warning to birds and other predators that the caterpillar is extremely unpleasant to eat. The caterpillars store alkaloids from the plant, which means that they would taste nasty if eaten.
Butterflies to look out for include gatekeepers with are orange and brown.
Visit the tidal rock pools and look for crabs, sea anemones, shellfish and stranded jellyfish.
Listen for grasshoppers making their distinctive sound as they rubs their legs against their bodies in areas with long grass. This is called ’stridulating’ and they are advertising their territories. They are difficult to spot due to their camouflaged green or brown colour, but will jump if disturbed and reveal themselves, only to disappear again when they land. In Britain the species most likely to be spotted are the common green, common field and the meadow grasshoppers.
Whirligig beetles can be seen in ponds. They are metallic black with orange legs and are called whirligig because they swim in circles on the surface of the water. Despite their fast, frenzied swimming they never collide into each other because they respond to vibrations that travel across the water. Their eyes are divided into two which allows them to see above and below the surface of the water at the same time!
On certain days around this time of the year swarms of black ants fill the air. The females have temporary wings which, after their short flight, they bite off and colonise a new area.

Fungi:

It is too early for most of the Autumn fungi, but some species such as the birch polypore can be found.
The Dryad’s Saddle is a fairly common bracket fungus and gets its name because it looks like a seat for a woodland fairy or dryad (a wood nymph in classical mythology). The fungus is a parasite of dead trees and it favours sycamore, beech, elm and ash. The brackets can grow up to half a metre across and they smell like aniseed!

Trees And Shrubs:

Some trees may start to show changes in colour. Tree seeds are ripening and large-leaved lime, sycamore, field maple and hornbeam will soon be shedding their winged seeds. In August though, the wings are all still green and growing.
In the hedgerows blackberries start to ripen, going from green to red then finally black and delicious. Elderberries also ripen and are feasted on by birds such as starlings and blackbirds. Other berries are ripening too, such as hawthorn (called haws), blackthorn (sloes) and roses (hips). These will provide sustenance for many species through winter months.

Plants:

In woods and along hedgerows, the leaves of cuckoopint or lords-and-ladies have totally died down leaving the ripening fruiting stem, with its head of poisonous red berries. This is the ‘lady’ part. The ‘lord’ appears in May.
The purple of heather flowers cover the hills, moor and lowland heaths, attracting thousands of bees. Bilberries are now ripe and ready to eat.
If you are walking through spongy lawns of bog moss in upland or lowland bogs look out for insect-eating sundews and avoid treading on them as they take a long time to recover.
In grasslands allowed to grow unchecked late flowering species include wild marjoram, lady’s bedstraw, knapweed, harebells and field scabious. This is also the best month for the deep purple flowered ‘devil’s bit’ scabious found in wet grasslands and on peaty soils. This scabious acquired is named from a folk tale. Its roots are unusual in that they stop very abruptly and the story goes that the devil, in a fit of peak, finding the plant flowering so beautifully and prolifically late in the year bit off the bases of the roots from below!
Where grasslands, be they pastures or meadows, are overgrazed the ground is often churned up (called poaching) and the perennial “weeds” ragwort and thistles can colonise and spread. This often happens in fields grazed by horses. Ragwort is poisonous to most livestock and they avoid eating it. Common ragwort, creeping and spear thistle are registered under the Weeds Act 1957 and landowners may be required to cut them down by the end of July each year. These weeds are however excellent sources of nectar for a wide variety of invertebrates and the seeds are eaten by birds.
Grasses turn brown if they haven’t been grazed or cut.
Also look out for betony, autumn gentian and marsh woundwort.