Beautiful nacreous clouds

These photographs of iridescent clouds, taken from the garden at 9.10am on the 10 December are known as nacreous or mother of pearl clouds and are formed some 15 -25km high in the stratosphere at temperatures below -78C.

They most commonly appear in polar regions but it is apparently quite rare to see such good displays in the UK. The clouds play a part in the formation of ozone holes as they contain chemicals which destroy ozone. (Information from the Met Office).

All in all, I'd rather be here

..but unfortunately garden, cutting hedges and some outside work on the house have anchored us firmly at home, although we have managed a couple of days on the local hills. Thankfully, our next trip is not too far off but the destination is flexible. Thanks to Alan Rayner, Martin Banfield and Sir Hugh for providing interesting reading on their respective blogs - always worth a visit. Hopefully I'll be able to post something of interest soon!

Saved

Carrion Crows

Yesterday we saw two carrion crows in the rear garden finishing off what remained of a young pigeon, we think. Our first reaction was that our sparrowhawk had paid another visit, although it's never left any remains behind before for crows and the like. Then we noticed the mark on the door window and concluded that the youngster had flown into it and either been  killed or badly injured; the carrions had moved in.

Despite having bird silhouette stickers on most of the windows we still get a fair number of casualties each year, although we've revived a few unfortunates over the years too.

Two strikes

Yesterday morning the garden was full of the noise of birds, happy, one felt, at the return of milder weather and a slightly easier life. The usual mix was there: coal tits at the kitchen window feeder, collared doves and blackbirds at the ground food, sparrows, blue tits, chaffinches, robins and starlings.

Then all went silent and the reason was not hard to discover. There on the buddleia sat another regular: our female sparrowhawk. We watched her for a while before she disappeared into a hedge near the apple blossom tree where some feeders hung. Back to what we were doing, but not for long.

The garden was noisey again, but this time with unmistakeable alarm. The sparrowhawk had ambushed a blackbird for her breakfast and soon only a scatter of feathers remained. She grabbed another this morning and devoured it on the same spot. We couldn't help but feel a pang of regret at the loss of the songsters, but the sparrowhawk takes only what she needs to survive and it is always a priviledge to study and admire this beautiful bird of prey.