We are over halfway through the month of August, and summer is coming to an end. Nature has been giving us hints that things have been changing.

August is a month of sunshine and flowers. Flowers, flowers, everywhere. I am finding it necessary to check my flower book to identify wildflowers that grow at this time of year.

On our walks, Mary Alice and I try to identify the wildflowers flowers we see, however, we often cannot come up with a name, that is until hours later when out of the blue one of us will blurt out the name of the flower. Our computer brains have eventually come up with a name.

August is when the chimney swifts suddenly disappear and the

Turkey vultures will no longer be flying in those lazy circles that we’ve been watching throughout the summer. Now they are traveling in a southward direction. The starlings will amaze us with their flying skills as they begin to form their large flocks, which are known as a murmuration.

Sunflowers appear everywhere in August. We once saw a squirrel perched on a sunflower head that had been full of ripe seeds but no longer.

The squirrels will also be harvesting green acorns. Many oak trees will appear as if they had been sheared. Found on the ground under the oaks are twigs, with leaves still attached but no acorns in sight.

The cattail, which is one plant recognized by almost everyone, turns brown during August. The plant’s minute seeds are packed tightly inside these brown cylinders. A large cattail head could contain as many as two million seeds.

Cattails grow in marshy areas all over North America. They grow in dense clusters in shallow water. Each plant contains both male and female flowers. The male flower, which is on the spike at the top, turns into a powder that drifts a golden pollen down onto the female flower, which is the familiar green cylinder. The female flower will turn a dark brown color when the male’s pollen reaches it. After releasing its pollen, the male flower dies and leaves a bare spike shown at the top of the plant.

The female flower is ripe after turning brown. It will now burst open and release the seeds packed inside. Each seed is suspended from a fine silky line that will float in the air. Some will land in favorable areas, and presto, next year cattail plants will appear.

The Native Americans used all parts of the cattail plant. The fluff was used to stuff their moccasins to ward off the cold; mothers padded their cradle boards with the fluff, both for insulation and as an absorbing diaper.

The roots of the cattails were dug and eaten raw, dried or roasted. They were also ground into a meal to be used in baking cakes. The long leaves of the plant were dried and woven into baskets or seats. After the first green leaves appeared in the spring, they were picked and cooked as greens.

Even the male flower’s pollen was collected and used for thickening soups. The Native Americans laid blankets on the out-rigging of their canoes and then paddled through cattail stands, beating the plants with their paddles. The pollen fell onto the blankets, where it was collected.

Some of our first American quilts were stuffed with cattail fluff. During World War I, fluff was used as a dressing for wounds.

As a kid, I made make-believe torches out of the cattail plants. At that time, I did not know that the pollen of the male flower is very inflammable. There are still areas in Europe where pollen is still used as a tinder to start fires. The cattail plant can grow to a height of six feet.

Sometimes, if left unchecked, the spreading of the cattail plants, in a shallow lake or pond, can become so dense that they will drink up all the water and the pond or lake will become a muddy area.

Another plant that blooms in August is Joe Pye weed. This the plant has a vanilla scented odor when crushed. The upper leaves are tinged with purple even before the flowers bloom.

The plant’s name came from an elderly Native American by the name of Joe Pye that lived in rural New England. He was a medicine man of sorts and had a special skill for reducing fevers by using this plant.

Little is known about Joe Pye. Even the date of his death is unknown. Tavern records in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in the 1770s, show that Joe bought rum, which was added to most potions, at local taverns. He collected this weed to such an extent that the local people simply added weed to his name.

Butterflies are the most frequent visitors to the tubular flowers of Joe Pye weed. Some bees and flies are also able to get nectar from the deep flowers.

An interesting thing about Joe Pye weed is that if insects do not cross pollinate it, the plant can cross pollinate itself.

There are other plants that also have this failsafe method.

Joe Pye weed will stay in bloom until the first frost and then disappear.

Well, the sunflowers are blooming, the cattails are brown, Joe Pye weeds are in bloom and August is half over.

School football teams and marching bands have begun practicing and school shopping has started. This is summer’s last fling before the school bell rings.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.