A little brightness under clouds

Out scything early

I didn't scythe all this. The farmer turned the hay yesterday evening. I expect he'll be along to bale it today.

First light on the field.
Saw a big fox lolloping down it and into gardens below.

Two colours of rose on one plant, with yarrow leaves

Morning grass

Morning buttercups

Time to get back out there and carry on mowing.

Some of what I saw on the way to Oban today

I went to Oban today to visit a friend in the hospital there. I stopped a few times along the way and back to take in Scotland's beauty.

A little piece of Loch Awe on a soft grey morning

Awesome reflections in the still waters of the River Awe above the Awe Barrage

Turning to go back to the car, I spotted these burrs

Winter bramble leaf colours

The turbulent waters below the barrage and some reflected orange light

A wee island on Loch Etive catching the light for a moment on the way there

And on the way back, light and shadows

Late afternoon winter light on Loch Etive

Adiabatic... er no... advection fog

Well, Toad calls it adiabatic; I just call it sea fog. Why use a word with nine letters when one with three will do? ;-) Did some googling and discovered it's probably advection fog – i.e. sea fog like wot I said.

I didn't wake until daylight today, which is unusual, so I had to get the camera out before my coffee and flapjack to catch this morning's sky excitement – intense colours across my horizons before the sea fog, which wasn't going to skirt round us today, obliterated the loch.

The fog starts to roll up the loch; I enjoyed the wee pink reflection first though.

East

South-east

NE

NNE

North

And the eider ducks had a lot to say about this. At least, they kept up their contact noises all the while. Where are you? I can't see you. I'm over here. Where. Right beside you.
It all sounds like O-ooo, so I did the translation for you.

I was awake for a few minutes at about four o'clock this morning and heard tawny owls very close too.

Later same day:

Camera on funny setting but I quite like the effect (in small doses)

The boat is an MOD Police boat

I liked the wake on the water. Small things :-)

A Blaze of a November Morning

The morning forays into the garden in wellies and dressing-gown to catch the sunrise have progressed now to neoprene-lined Muck boots, thick dressing-gown, sheepskin gilet, and fleece headband. Must dig out the fingerless mitts. But chilled paws were worth it this morning.

For the sinking, waning moon to the west

and the pink cloud reflections of the early sunlight to the north-west,

this pre-sunrise stripiness to the south-east,

and the blaze of the sunrise as it showed over the horizon.

Walking back down the garden, I kept having to pull my cold hands out of sleeves to capture other blazes

 on twigs,

on leaves,

on ferns,

 through fences,

and finally, reflected in the kitchen window.

The Old Rowan

After doing a bit of garden tidying today (not that you'd notice!), I walked up the garden with my camera to try and capture the deep blue of the loch and the autumn hillsides on the other side before the sun sank behind the hill at the back of us. There were a couple of windsurfers zipping about in the choppiness.

You can just see the two sails

Best I could do from the distance. He was out of the picture in no time.

Then I tramped further up the garden and turned around to look at the last of the sunshine on the larches at the bottom of the field. This is all at about 1300GMT. Shortly after that we lose the direct sunlight on this side of the loch in winter.

Love that deep blue and the white wavelet caps

Part of the tallest larch here came down in a storm a couple of winters ago; that's why it's a funny shape.

Rummaging about under the old cypress tree, I enjoyed the colours when I looked up. The wind was strong enough to sway the whole of this multi-trunked tree, as I realised when I felt an odd sensation of swaying when I'd braced myself against of them to take the photograph!

And then I noticed all the fungi on the old rowan. When we moved here there was an old step ladder leaning against this rowan and evidence of a treehouse from long ago. Where the trunk had been cut was clearly dying but the tree was making valiant efforts to keep growing. It has been successful so far and produces a good crop of berries most years even in the shadow of the cypress and with the fungi now really taking hold.

You can see a couple of the huge rusty nails left over from treehouse days

Old and new layers of this bracket fungus, by the looks of it

And here are views of more of the tree

One of the big old dying branches

The main trunk with the young valiant growth to the left.
The blue plastic is covering a wood pile

Fungus and iron in an old tree,
and the colour of the cypress twig caught my eye

As I finish this at a quarter to four, the hills across the loch are turning russet in the last of the sunshine. The lower part of the slopes are already in the shadow of the boggy brae. Short, sharp and blustery this day has been but full of life.