Friday notes

The weather here has turned grey and drizzly, although not too cold. Further south, the big storm has raced east, and is now wreaking havoc in Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine. Fatalities have unfortunately occurred, with around 10 in both Britain and Germany, and several more in other countries. The majority were caused by falling trees or flying debris. After another episode of high winds later today and tomorrow, the weather should turn colder over the weekend.

Two things came to my attention from the Small Isles, the group of 4 islands south of Skye. During the series Autumnwatch, which ran in October, the rut of the deer at Kilmory, Isle of Rum was followed closely. There are now plans afoot to plant 4,000 acres of Kilmory Glen with trees, which would require 2/3 of the herd of deer to be culled, effectively pulling the plug on 30 years of research on the animals.
And after all the nasty rats were exterminated from Rum's neighbour, Canna, precautions have been put into place to prevent the rodents from hitching a lift back on board fishing boats, the ferry and private yachts.

This week saw some very extreme weather around the world. The southwestern USA had some unusually cold weather (also judging by what is being written in journals), whereas Moscow was balmy with a daytime temperature of +6C, some 15 degrees above the seasonal average. A chart, found on Weather Underground's website showed temperatures across the north Asian continent to be some 10 degrees above normal.

Climate change or a one-off anomaly? Time only will tell.

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