Twilight

Twilight is the time of day that is half way between daylight and darkness. It is when the earth’s surface is neither completely lit nor completely dark. Here in the far northern hemisphere twilight lasts much longer in the summer months and sometimes it never gets properly dark. In Norway and other countries close to the north pole it is known as the ‘Midnight Sun’.

At the end of twilight dusk falls and a bat appears in my courtyard every evening to fly in circles feeding on the night-time bugs. When I see ‘Batty’ I know it is summer.

twilight has long been popular with photographers, who refer to it as ‘sweet light’, and painters, who refer to it as the blue hour, after the French expression: l’heure bleue.

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Heyjude

I have lived in the UK for most of my life, but when young I definitely had wanderlust and even ended up living in South Africa for several years which was a wonderful experience. I now look forward to a long and leisurely retirement doing what I like most - gardening, photography, walking and travelling.

39 thoughts on “Twilight”

  2. The header shot is a lovely mix of colours Jude, like an abstract painting.
    We always see the Beetley Bats as the heralds of ‘real’ summer too.
    Regards as always, Pete. x

    1. We only seem to have the one bat Pete. Not sure which kind – he/she flies so fast, but it has a pretty big wing span.

      1. Our are tiny, and there are half a dozen or more. I haven’t seen one with a large wingspan in Norfolk, sounds interesting!

  5. If I can recast your first sentence in an etymological light: the reason English calls it twilight is because it’s the transition between two kinds of “light”, day and night.

    1. Thank you Steve. I should get you to edit my posts, you have such a delightful grasp of language. I learn so much from your observations 🙂

      1. When I was teaching math years ago I prepared a list of hidden number words. A few other native English words in which two is hiding are twine, twist, twill, and between.

  7. I love twilight, its nearly here now, I have the occasional batty visiting but not like in my old house. I saw one in the afternoon at Knightshayes last week, watched it for ages flitting around. Of course I tried to take a photo but all I got was a blur!

  8. I agree with Sue. It’s a pretty sweet photo. Dawn and twilight are definitely my favourite simply because the sky is so beautiful … like this photo.

    1. To be honest I never realised that twilight occurs twice a day – after sunset (when the sun disappears below the horizon) and before sunrise (when the sun appears above the horizon). I just keep on learning more and more things through blogging.

      1. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to the morning hours as twilight, but the soft dawn light is my favourite and the beautiful sunrises can often occur. It feels like a promise of a day full of potential 🙂

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