October …. a month of changes.
With the onset of the month of October, the temperatures start changing as well as the colours with autumn. Memories of previous special autumnal sunrises returned with such occasions as the sunrise below. The sky seemed to ‘catch fire’ for a while before the sun peaked over the horizon.
With the increase in windy days, at times the skies were strewn with artistic cloud patterns such as the one below on a particular morning:
The weather has also become a lot wetter bringing a seeming increase in the number of rainbows:
Over a recent weekend we had what felt like a few days of almost continuous rain when a weather front got ‘stuck’ over Scotland - meanwhile there was a heatwave down in England! This wet weather brought the typical flooding and great increase in water levels to the rivers. I took the opportunity to get out on a Sunday afternoon to return to the Eskadale Burn and capture some photos of the torrent!
Some of the night skies over our home were so dark it emphasised the wonders of how many stars there are …
And the dawn skies brought some great views of the moon:
This year, I wanted to visit Killicrankie, just north of Pitlochry for the autumn colours. Due to the schedule over the coming weeks, this particular trip was slightly earlier than ideal, with the leaf colours not reaching their ‘autumnal peak’, but the weather was due to be great in the morning with clear skies - so I headed south in anticipation of some good photo opportunities. I planned to arrive soon after sunrise - catching the sunrise on the journey down as I approached Killiecrankie,
The gorge over the River Garry lies approximately north/south and so is in the shade until the sun is well up in the sky, due to Meall Uaine (600m) directly to the east! This meant the tree colours were quite muted initially. The photo below is looking down the river to the south as the sun cast its light on the distant hillside.
As the sun rose higher the light started to break over the trees lighting up more of the autumnal colours:
Rather than wait around for the sun to light up the gorge I took Willow for a walk along the river to the south - with the photos taken below:
By the time we got back to the bridge the sun was lighting up the gorge:
To wrap up the morning I popped over to the Pitlochry dam to check out the views. It was bitterly cold with the wind blowing a hoolie, a pointer maybe to the winter months ahead.
It was time to head home again and on the way back the distant higher mountains were dusted or coated in snow - autumn will soon be over!
