A showery southwesterly flow covers much of the UK. Conditions at 12z (1PM BST): Thickness, 550dam, temperature 19C (dewpoint 10C). Wind from the southwest, 16 MPH. Sunday's high, 20C, Saturday night's low 10C (source: MetO, the 12z GFS and NOAA).

Last week's trip to the Trust was a flying visit, hence I didn't think it was worth devoting a writeup to it. However, there was one notable feature, a cloudbow! It was the first one I'd seen and luckily the camera was able to capture it:


View to the NW, Beenham

Cloudbows are caused when small droplets in clouds (and/or fog) refract sunlight. I'm not sure why they're so rare, but a pale, massive "rainbow" effect was quite noticable - I'd been eyeing it up all the way along the M3!

Anyway, on to this week...

Today dawned much as usual, largely clear skies although there was a brisk westerly wind. Temperatures were around 10C and as I drove westwards the clouds quickly thickened, with rain along the M3 and A329(M) near Bracknell. It stopped by the time I arrived at the Trust, thankfully.

Unusually today I was offered the chance to let Duma and Dakota out of their kennels, something which involved making sure they had a route out into the enclosure and then opening the door to the kennel - and whoosh, they went past quickly with Duma carrying a bone in her jaws. The church bells were ringing in the village church and within a few seconds both wolves started howling.


Duma


That set the Euros off and I ended up recording them - here's a video clip, with wolves, bells and howling!

http://www.medvale.net/wolves/05-09-25/euros.avi
(39 seconds, 2.8MB)

Cleaning today didn't take long, which meant it was time to get to work - tidying up the place in preparation for the seminar next month. It wasn'y exactly scruffy, but it's amazing just how many weeds and things there were in the verges!


A dappled Duma

After a few hours of that it was time to head back to Kent, although my journey took a little longer than I'd hoped for...


A thing of the past by this time next year!
.

Back to the index