Winter Greets First Day of Spring

With today's equinox, we move into spring. In the circumstances, it would have been good to have taken a picture of a brilliant sunrise but there was no chance of that. Since the early hours we've had wave after wave of wintery showers blown in on a steady westerly, their products ranging from snow through hail to sleet. This picture looks past the war memorial in Kilchoan to the houses of Ormsaigbeg, with the peak of Beinn na Seilg just visible.

In the few brighter moments the scenery has been spectacular. A light dusting of snow like this seems to pick out the bones of the land, exaggerating every cliff, fold and lump of rock, and muting the colours. Here we're looking across Kilchoan Bay to the houses in Pier Road, and to the peaks of Ben Hiant, right, and Beinn na h-Urchrach, left.

A sudden cold snap like this does the spring flowers no good, and isn't....

....too great for Nan MacLachlan's early lambs. Her flock has now produced seven, all of them warmly accommodated in barns or horse boxes.

The small birds have to endure whatever the weather throws at them. This is one of several robins in our garden and we were concerned that we hadn't seen the one with the broken leg....

....until lunch time today, when he turned up on the wall of the terrace to grab a hasty meal before one of the others saw him and chased him off.