Birds in a Blue Sky

This is dawn this morning - and what a contrast to the dawns of the last few weeks!  The only cloud in the sky was an elongate strip which ran along the southeastern horizon, backlit by the rising sun.

With clear skies all night, the temperature fell to -1C in Ormsaigbeg and -4C at Mingary by dawn, the lowest temperatures this winter.  Comet Lovejoy was visible, as a fuzzy ball near the Pleiades, but the Diary confesses to have found it too cold standing outside to set up the tripod to attempt a picture - but there are some good ones and an easy-to-use map to help find it on the Sky & Telescope site.

For the rest of the morning the sky was steadily invaded by high, wispy cirrus, the great expanses of blue being filled by birds which probably haven't enjoyed a good stretch of their wings in weeks.

These included a sea eagle caught here against the summit of Ben Hiant.  Unlike yesterday's eagle sighting, which most people seem fairly certain was a golden eagle, we could see the white tail on this one so it was definitely an adult sea eagle.

The sky seemed to be full of birds.  In this shot a buzzard flies towards a grey heron.

Good things don't last.  The high pressure which gave us this welcome break is giving way to an Atlantic depression centred over Iceland.  This will bring fronts with rain on them by tomorrow.