Perseid Meteor Shower

Every August the Earth passes through the debris of the comet Swift-Tuttle and we can see the resulting meteor shower. These 'shooting stars' peaked Saturday night so I set up the camera in the garden and spent a few hours dodging the clouds and hoping to catch a meteor as it flashed past. It was a good night for them, they didn't peak until after midnight but between 10-11pm I saw quite a few, some faint wisps but a couple of good tailed streaks across the sky. Beautiful.

30 Days Wild - Day 21 - Summer Solstice & The Longest Birthday

Summer solstice.
First day of summer.
Longest Day.
My birthday!

One of my 'to dos' on Pinterest is to see the sunrise on my birthday on the solstice at Stonehenge but in the meantime and for 30 Days Wild I made a point of getting up at 4am to watch the sunrise.  I have learnt a few things already this morning:

The times given for sunrises on my weather app can strangely change overnight!
The sun does not rise in the east at this time of year - more north east!
There is a tree directly at north-east from my house!
Summer solstice times given for my town on various websites do not seem to match!
The birds are incredibly loud at 4.30am!
Today will be 16 hours and 38 minutes long.
Solstice comes from the Latin for sun (sol) and stand still (sistere).
I should have got dressed and gone out for a walk for a better view and experience.
The experience was still amazing. Quiet. Peaceful. Well worth getting up.
I'm going to be sooooo tired this afternoon!

30 Days Wild - Day 19 - Evening Viewing

As the heat is still rising and the coolest place is my office I haven't even been out for my regular lunchtime walk, or been inclined to go outdoors at all. However, it looked like it might be a nice sunset and by 9pm it was comfortable enough to sit in the garden, so I took my camera and phone out and waited for the sky to colour up for my 30 Days Wild act.

While I was waiting I thought I'd tick off another random act of wildness and check out some webcams and as it was for 30 Days I looked up the Wildlife Trust to see what they had.

How great it is to be able to turn on and watch wildlife that was previously unaccessible. How many people just a few years ago could say they had seen inside a Peregrine nest? Amazing privilege.

Osprey nest at Rutland Water with two chicks.

A barn owl nest at Blue House Farm nature reserve in Essex.

Peregrines on Buckinghamshire County Council's County Hall in Aylesbury.

And the sunset? By now the sky had become streaked with clouds and vapour trails and a strip of orange hung on the horizon. Not a spectacular sunset in the end but such a pretty sky.

30 Days Wild - Day 6 - British Weather

I have a confession. I love the British weather! The wind, rain, sunshine, showers, snow, hail, dry, frost and stormy forecasts all make for interesting landscapes and let's face it conversation! Although at the time I may moan, a bit, about endless soggy days or the sweatiness of a mini-heatwave, I find it exciting but also comforting that the seasons arrive more or less as expected, every three months, every year. Yes our climate is definitely changing but we do still have marked differences as the year goes by.
(Note: as I write this Springwatch is on and saying almost the exact same thing! 😃)



I spent most of today holed up in the office at work, vaguely aware of the rain outside and wondering what my 30 Day Wild challenge would be. Once at home I was standing at the window looking at my battered garden  (it looked so lovely yesterday!) when I noticed the sky changing and I decided to spend half an hour just watching, and photographing, the weather.

The clouds took on edgy forms and the sky turned quickly from lavender grey to blue black across from west to east while the wind grew wilder, bending the willow and its silver birch neighbours. I wondered about the nests being thrown around, hoped their contents would be safe. The peony heads, weighted down with rainwater bruised blooms, almost brushed the lawn and the wayward bough of black elder broke away from its garden twine harness. Then the rain sliced across the view, dashes at forty five degrees.

Within minutes blue holes appeared to the west, sunshine forced its way through splitting the skyline into light and dark. And then, as I knew it would, opposite the sunlight, one arc of colour then another appeared. A double rainbow, the first as vivid as I have seen for a long while, brightened further by the now deepest gunmetal backdrop.

The British weather:  Changeable? Definitely. Boring? Never.

A change of scene

We spent last week in North Devon on a family break. We stayed in Croyde, a special place our family in one form or an other have visited for over 40 years. On one of the evenings the sky looked promising for a sunset so I grabbed the camera. The sun was tucked away behind Baggy Point but the tide was out so I could walk right down the beach to catch the light. The sea had left a landscape of salty puddles leading down to the edge of the water which made for some great interest in the shots.

Stormy sunset

We had some glorious skies the other evening. The clouds bubbled up into a heavy threatening mass but as the sun went down it caught the outer edges and we had a glorious fiery sunset, all topped off by a sliver of crescent moon.

Autumn

I love autumn, the colours, the air, wildlife becoming active again - beginning to stock up and hanker down. The later dusks and dawns are easier to view with mists and stormy clouds, pinks, purples and orange skies. Below are a few of my favourites taken over the past few weeks.