Sky View from the Garden

I started watching the sky more closely when I had time during the long hot lockdown summer of 2020 and I used to sit in the garden and contemplate. There are so many things going on up there. 

                                                          

Contrails in the blue

There are huge jet planes flying to and from Heathrow and their contrails leaving curious designs in the blue. Once only I have seen a biplane mysteriously on its way to some air show perhaps. 

 

Biplane in the clouds

Swift 

There's often the local helicopter noisily surveying the locality. Smaller and nearer, there are often birds. Seagulls float around, presumably they follow the Thames upriver. The crow flies over the garden several times a day and occasionally there are visitations from parakeets. I love to watch the swifts in summer wheeling around and darting to catch insects. 

And then there are the clouds, those powerful and mysterious atmospheric rivers in the sky, moving with the weather and carrying huge amounts of water vapour, which will eventually fall as rain or snow somewhere far away. They are the equivalent of terrestrial rivers, flowing with speed through the atmosphere. I am so aware that their flow is being altered by global warming and can cause disastrous flooding - we've experienced it here. 

Rivers in the sky

On a brighter note -  at night, although here in London you can't see many stars because they are outshone by the street lights, we do get some splendid moons.