A colourful February day in Aberdeenshire

The last week of february 2012 has seen a sucession of unseasonably mild weather, culminating in 28th February being  the warmest february day in Scotland since 1897 with a temperature near Aberdeen of 17.2 degrees Celcius.

To put this in context, temperatures for the same week in 2011 were between minus 6 and minus 11 degrees Celcius!

The early flowers are already out; Snowdrops and these Crocus in full bloom.  The garden and woods are full of birdsong. The Rooks already have nests in a group of tall Larch trees nearby, their calls are such a part of the farmland scene.

I used the weather to do some tidying in the garden.  Towards evening a gorgeous luminous light washed the surrounding fields and I grabbed the camera.

A few hundred metres up the lane and this glorious sunset was developing and lighting the whole sky.  Unfortunately I didn't bring the tripod so these images aren't as sharp as they should have been.  I walked to the top of the lane as the sky darkened from gold to red.

The view to the southwest was spectacular.  The warm weather has been partly caused by a Fohn effect with air warming as it flows down the eastern slopes of the Cairngorm mountains.  The resulting unusual cloud formations were underlit an angry red; the gold of just a few minutes previously had lost its colour and turned inky dark.

Walking back down the lane, the evening air felt more like April than February.