Ring Around the Moon

Cold night but the sky was fairly clear. The moon appeared to have a ring around it. There are two different phenomena. A halo is caused by refraction  when moonlight passes through thin clouds of ice crystals high in Earth's atmosphere. As moonlight passes through the ice crystals, it is bent in a way similar to light passing through a lens. The shape of the ice crystals causes the moonlight to be focused into a ring.

However, this looks more like a corona.  This happens when the light of the Moon, is diffracted on small drops of water in the clouds, so by diffraction of the light and not refraction. A whitish disc with a coloured rim becomes visible.

Big Garden Birdwatch 2018

For over 30 years now the RSPB has been conducting a garden birdwatch at this time of year. The public are invited to take part by watching and recording the birds they see in one hour in their garden or a park and sending in their results by post or on-line. My results for this year, taken yesterday, were:

Blackbird: 1
Dunnock: 1
Blue tit: 2
House sparrow: 6
Robin: 1
Starling: 2

The count was fairly representative of what we see most days. Other birds that we see regularly are coal tits, great tits, goldfinches and woodpigeons. Occasionally see bullfinches, long-tailed tits and collared doves.

First Snows of 2018

Looking across the fields from the Serpentine Walk.
Compared to some areas of the country, snow has been light here, just a thin covering, but still scenic.

 Upper Largo nestles beneath Largo Law.

 Largo Law from the main road on the walk back to Lundin Links.

Sheep searching out the grass between the patches of snow.

Sun Going Down

Never tire of watching the sun going down over Largo Bay.

Natural Ice Sculpture

 Very cold and frosty weather lead to these ice formations on the Largo Burn in the Serpentine Walk.

There were also icy patches on the Keil Burn

Fish Skull

Found the top half of a fish skull on the beach in Lower Largo. It is 8 cm. long and 3 cm. at the widest part. I think it comes from a fish from the family gadidae. This include cod, haddock, whiting and pollock.

 Side view of the skull.

Several years ago I found the skull of a bird on the same beach. It was eventually identified as a guillemot skull. Photographed them together here. They are similar in size but can see that they are quite different. The slender beak in the bird skull identifies it as a diving sea bird.

Saltire in the Sky

Beautiful sunny day yesterday with a bright blue sky. Doing a bit of tidying in the garden, I looked up to the sky and there was a diagonal cross directly above me. It reminded me of the St Andrews Cross. Not sure if  it was caused by aircraft trails or natural cloud or a bit of both.