My First …

My first butterfly at this place. The possibility of continuing to enjoy vists of butterflies is one of the reasons I wanted to live on the second floor, not the tenth.

I think an orchard butterfly, but not sure, investigating my bolly gum. I don’t have the Latin binomial at the end of my fingertips so will add in later.

In the foreground the butterfly rising from the plants, leaving disappointed, no doubt, not yet having found the citrus only a little distance toward the back of the plant array.

In the background a vast herd of Cumulus mediocris. Yes, that is what they are called. Thes are clouds of the lower altitudes, 2000 to 3000 feet above sealevel.

Cumulus mediocris appear as wide as they are tall, have proturbances and sproutings on top and do not usually cause rain, though can develop into angry and towering Cumulus congestus thunderclouds.

Cirrus uncinus

Or ‘mares tails’ elongated filaments, straight or slightly curved, without clumps or mounds on their upper sides … paraphrased from The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

Insert: What I forgot to say yesterday, is that mares’ tails are ‘higher level’ clouds that occur in the 5 to 14 kilometer (16k feet to 45k feet) outer layers of clouds.

They’re made up of ice spiccules that fall up there and evaporate well before they reach the ground. And, despite that these clouds look immovable, they’re speeding along at 160 kilometers or 100 miles per hour.

I was glad to see them, because up to now there have been days and weeks of the cumulous type clouds that are part of the rainy season.

Now, finally, it seems, we’ve progressed into autumn/fall. Cooler nights and days, ranging from 18C at night to about 28C in the daytime.

My Sky +

+ abseiling lines … the window washers are threaded over the building. They did a great job on my windows, which are clean for the first time in their lives. If you can talk about the lives of windows.

And my sky + a few Cumulus humilis according to my interpretation of a diagram in Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide. Minimal vertical extent, he says. ‘They look flattened and appear wider than they are tall and do not cause rain.’

I’ve had that book for about fifteen years and this is the first time I’ve lived somewhere where I can see a decent bit of sky when I look out of the windows.

Isn’t it strange by the way, that we still say ‘look out the windows’ when actually, usually, we look through the windows? I often notice a paradoxical thing in relation with doors. We walk through the doors?

Have you tried that recently? I don’t recommend it.