Perhaps we should have taken yesterday evening's bright rainbow out over the sea as a warning, for we were woken early this morning by the wind battering the west gable of the house, not steadily but in a series of sudden, vicious gusts.
This graphic weather map gives a good idea of what we're undergoing, Golspie being under the area of highest wind speeds.
For anything trying to fly, like....
....this unfortunate robin, controlling its trajectory must have been a nightmare. Finding it on our morning walk, where we had to put our heads down against the gale on our way out, and were then blown most of the way home, we couldn't work out how it died, as it lay in the middle of one of the wider forest tracks, not somewhere it could have been hit by a vehicle.
There was similar aerial craziness in the back garden. The sun may have been out and it was beautifully warm in sheltered spots, but the southwesterly gale was oscillating from 30mph up to almost 60mph in the strongest gusts, not something this butterfly - not sure, but it might be a speckled wood - could cope with. By contrast....
....the red admirals, of which, despite the mayhem, there were three in the garden this morning and nine a couple of days ago, seemed to be able to cope much better.
This gale seems likely to be pivotal between the late sunny summer we've had and the winter to come. Most deciduous trees still have green leaves, but this vicious gale will change that.
Weather map courtesy... https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-6.98,57.63,2519
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