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Scotland/Alba Regional Weather Discussion 23/04/17 onwards


BlueHedgehog074

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Posted
  • Location: Fettercain/Edzell
  • Location: Fettercain/Edzell

Aberdeen felt quite warm, mainly overcast and humid this morning.  

During a ten minutes or so sitting on a bench in Union Square while waiting for a return train, I watched a mob of five Herring gulls swoop on a poor woman who emerged from the shopping centre carrying a sandwich. One managed to steal the the said sandwich from her hand and quite a kerfuffle followed. The woman appeared genuinely scared.

I passed through a heavy, large rain-drop shower, on the way home from Montrose, later, and could see a few such similar showers to the north, over the hills.

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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256
2 hours ago, ciel said:

Aberdeen felt quite warm, mainly overcast and humid this morning.  

During a ten minutes or so sitting on a bench in Union Square while waiting for a return train, I watched a mob of five Herring gulls swoop on a poor woman who emerged from the shopping centre carrying a sandwich. One managed to steal the the said sandwich from her hand and quite a kerfuffle followed. The woman appeared genuinely scared.

I passed through a heavy, large rain-drop shower, on the way home from Montrose, later, and could see a few such similar showers to the north, over the hills.

Dull, warm and showery here so sounds similar.

I'm generally one of the first to stand up for birds but gulls are vermin. Herring and the large black-backed ones, that is - the smaller and/or less common ones are no problem.  I could rant about the big ones at length. Pretty much the same goes for crows. And foxes, and badgers now according to NL.... Some would add pine martens, rats, otters and red deer to the list. :unknw: and sika and roe deer, muntjac in parts of England. Elephants in parts of Africa. Ok, stop now, HC.

Edited by Hairy Celt
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Posted
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl
8 minutes ago, Hairy Celt said:

Dull, warm and showery here so sounds similar.

I'm generally one of the first to stand up for birds but gulls are vermin. Herring and the large black-backed ones, that is - the smaller and/or less common ones are no problem.  I could rant about the big ones at length. Pretty much the same goes for crows. And foxes, and badgers now according to NL.... Some would add pine martens, rats, otters and red deer to the list. :unknw: and sika and roe deer, muntjac in parts of England. Elephants in parts of Africa. Ok, stop now, HC.

 Gull  Problems     Nairn  visitor organisations are possibly planning to take in falcons to scare them enough next summer to stop them breeding as they are such a problem now.in the town. Humid and wet here too. Still a bit of hay to make but it will have to wait in spite of it getting mature at least its not cut. Black Isle Show could be a washout in the morning on Thursday.The upside of the late cut hay is that the red clover is in full flower and the humming of millions of bees  feeding on it as you pass it is very pleasing to the ear.

Edited by Northernlights
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
6 minutes ago, Northernlights said:

 Gull  Problems     Nairn  visitor organisations are possibly planning to take in falcons to scare them enough next summer to stop them breeding as they are such a problem now.in the town. Humid and wet here too. Still a bit of hay to make but it will have to wait in spite of it getting mature at least its not cut. Black Isle Show could be a washout in the morning on Thursday.The upside of the late cut hay is that the red clover is in full flower and the humming of millions of bees  feeding on it as you pass it is very pleasing to the ear.

Gulls really are a pain in the bottom NL, but whatever happened with that Eagle Owl that was attacking peeps by the Eastgate Centre?:shok:

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Posted
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl

Passing shower just now gave rise to this full rainbow P7310623.thumb.JPG.eec5f50402b8f9ff5574a07261435ec9.JPGwhich seemed to end on two different fields on the farm.Hope its a sign of good harvest weather later this month

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Posted
  • Location: Fettercain/Edzell
  • Location: Fettercain/Edzell
1 hour ago, Hairy Celt said:

 

4 hours ago, ciel said:

Aberdeen felt quite warm, mainly overcast and humid this morning.  

During a ten minutes or so sitting on a bench in Union Square while waiting for a return train, I watched a mob of five Herring gulls swoop on a poor woman who emerged from the shopping centre carrying a sandwich. One managed to steal the the said sandwich from her hand and quite a kerfuffle followed. The woman appeared genuinely scared.

I passed through a heavy, large rain-drop shower, on the way home from Montrose, later, and could see a few such similar showers to the north, over the hills.

Dull, warm and showery here so sounds similar.

I'm generally one of the first to stand up for birds but gulls are vermin. Herring and the large black-backed ones, that is - the smaller and/or less common ones are no problem.  I could rant about the big ones at length. Pretty much the same goes for crows. And foxes, and badgers now according to NL.... Some would add pine martens, rats, otters and red deer to the list. :unknw: and sika and roe deer, muntjac in parts of England. Elephants in parts of Africa. Ok, stop now, HC.

 

Is it not our human impact that causes these problems?

I have seen a Peregrine taking action in Union Square a few years ago.

Nae ranting, but I'm all for the re-introduction of natural predators.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Gourock 10m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Summer: Warm/Dry enough for a t-shirt. Winter: Cold enough for a scarf.
  • Location: Gourock 10m asl

Gulls are starting to become a bit of a problem even in Glasgow. Getting quite cocky during the summer months in some places. That'll only get worse as they get braver.

Into the dog days of summer now. Wonder if we'll get some lingering warmth later in August and into September. If memory serves I think September can be quite nice.

Edited by Glaswegianblizzard
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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256
2 hours ago, ciel said:

Is it not our human impact that causes these problems?

I have seen a Peregrine taking action in Union Square a few years ago.

Nae ranting, but I'm all for the re-introduction of natural predators.

 

True enough, but I'm not sure what effect a few peregrines would have on the many large colonies of gulls around our coasts. Gulls are seriously large and aggressive birds (especially so in breeding season, which would be the best time to have go at them) and I don't know of any native - or even non-native - raptor that would take them on and have a significant impact.

Edited by Hairy Celt
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Posted
  • Location: Home: Glenrothes, Fife Work: St Andrews, Fife
  • Location: Home: Glenrothes, Fife Work: St Andrews, Fife
23 minutes ago, Hairy Celt said:

True enough, but I'm not sure what effect a few peregrines would have on the many large colonies of gulls around our coasts. Gulls are seriously large and aggressive birds (especially so in breeding season, which would be the best time to have go at them) and I don't know of any native - or even non-native - raptor that would take them on and have a significant impact.

Herring gulls a big problem in St Andrews too though they don't seem to be as much of an issue in Broughty Ferry in my experience. They used Harris Hawks in St Andrews for a while but not sure there was any real impact. Of course when you see people feeding them and refuse being left out open to the gulls you realise much of the blame lies with us, as Ciel suggests.

Edited by Hawesy
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Posted
  • Location: near Jedburgh
  • Weather Preferences: well it depends.. just not haar!
  • Location: near Jedburgh

Harris Hawks could tackle gulls but only if pushed. Peregrines would if they had nests or chicks to protect.  Eagle owls looks good but flying them can be like herding cats! The easiest way to get rid of gulls I would think is to remove the food source. ie put on more street cleaners. But that would involve money to pay them eh.

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Posted
  • Location: Highland Scotland
  • Location: Highland Scotland

Aye that Eagle Owl was good at keeping the herring gulls behaviour in check in Inverness, but the powers that be decided it shouldn't be there and it was captured and given to a bird of prey sanctuary.

I saw a herring gull try to steal an ice cream from a toddler recently, wouldn't want to mess with him when he's older, the gull got a fantastic left hook for it's troubles and no ice cream cone! :D 

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Posted
  • Location: Currie, SW Edinburgh, 140m asl
  • Location: Currie, SW Edinburgh, 140m asl

Been a while since I saw rain come down like that! The water running down Waterloo Place in Edinburgh was unreal! 

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Posted
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl

Well we need lights on to do paperwork in house this morning with a very threatning sky this morning. Local forecast on here says dry till 1.00pm.Do"t think thats going to happen. Turning into a very poor summer now. Currently 15c and light rain

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Posted
  • Location: near Jedburgh
  • Weather Preferences: well it depends.. just not haar!
  • Location: near Jedburgh

Hot sun here, really hot. Very odd. Thunder forecast for later.  My son the falconer says in the wild hawks and falcons would avoid the bigger gulls like they do crows, but that a trained hawk or falcon would take them.

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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256

Warm and lashing it down.  Turning into a bit of a mould-fest of a summer now, like some from about 2002 to 2005 I think. Could be wrong, don't quote me.

I don't think the falcon solution is practical for so many places unless we can suddenly start breeding bird-trainers too.  What range do tasers work at?

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Posted
  • Location: Tullynessle/Westhill
  • Weather Preferences: Cold and snowy or warm and dry
  • Location: Tullynessle/Westhill

Weekend into Monday here was so, so. A bit of everything and although not what you'd call warm it wasn't cold and miserable either.

Talking of birds, we had an almost tame Thrush in the garden the other day. It was quite happily hopping around whilst I was working out there, and even came within about 6ft of us at one point as we sat and watched it. A real treat as it's a bird we rarely seem to see in the garden any more. Used to be regular visitors to my garden when I was a kid.

Some good news on the bee front too. After weeks of not seeing any evidence of queens laying new brood in our two bee hives, we checked again yesterday and found brood in both. One had quite a lot actually, and we think that hive might have a new queen (if we can find her we'll know as the old queen was marked). Seems to have been another 'strange' feature of this year as a few beekeepers have noted a distinct lack of laying activity from queens since mid to late May. Might be related to the warm spells in Spring, that led to a boom in bee numbers, then the subsequent lack of any real warm weather as summer has progressed?

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Posted
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl
  • Location: N.E. Scotland South Side Moray Firth 100m asl

Stormy skies this afternoonP8010627.thumb.JPG.8a78850002294ff7653351cce627b469.JPG Ground getting really wet now,   not what we want  when the grumpy old farmer is suffering from  P.H.T. (pre harvest tension) 

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Posted
  • Location: Condorrat, Cumbernauld G67
  • Location: Condorrat, Cumbernauld G67

Looks like the Mountains once again are going to prevent the showers from coming through here

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Posted
  • Location: Highland Scotland
  • Location: Highland Scotland

We seem to be slipping back into perpetual autumn mode ! A bit of a if it were January ensemble chart here, a week of unsettled conditions with below average temperatures coming up!

 

MT8_Aberdeen_ens.png

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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256
10 hours ago, skifreak said:

We seem to be slipping back into perpetual autumn mode ! A bit of a if it were January ensemble chart here, a week of unsettled conditions with below average temperatures coming up!

 

MT8_Aberdeen_ens.png

Temps don't look too awful but what's noticeable is the lack of wind... which equals a plague of the WFFs!

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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256

Our Douglas Hogg was as full as it's been for a few months last night. Raining again now although this morning was nice for a while.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
3 minutes ago, Hairy Celt said:

Our Douglas Hogg was as full as it's been for a few months last night. Raining again now although this morning was nice for a while.

Not full of Douglas Hurds, I hope!:D

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Posted
  • Location: Isle of Skye, 14m/49ft above sea level
  • Weather Preferences: Storms, wild! wild! wild! Frost, a wee bit o' sun....
  • Location: Isle of Skye, 14m/49ft above sea level

Ummmm, I see that Metcheck is forecasting ridiculously high winds overnight and most of tomorrow. That's up to 80mph later tomorrow. Methinks a computer glitch! Anyhoo, the August dreichfest is well and truly underway. It's midge heaven oot there the noo so I think I'll stay indoors today. If the beast's don't get me then the badly driven camper vans will!:girl_devil::D

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Posted
  • Location: NH7256
  • Weather Preferences: where's my vote?
  • Location: NH7256
17 hours ago, Ed Stone said:

Not full of Douglas Hurds, I hope!:D

No, it was the inestimable Hogg who claimed expenses for having his moat dredged. Or something just as despicable. He even looks like a hurd.

Spitting here this morning, sometimes full on footballer style spitting mind.

Biggest laugh of the month so far. Watching a youtube of some French guys doing a bivouac up a scary mountain in the Devoluy. They're chatting away merrily in the dark in the tent, and they're sharing a bottle of nice St Emilion. Except cos they're travelling light, no glasses, so they take turns to swig out of the bottle. :drunk:

Edited by Hairy Celt
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Posted
  • Location: Condorrat, Cumbernauld G67
  • Location: Condorrat, Cumbernauld G67

Was a VERY wet start this morning but as has been the case with the showers all week it's a wet start but most of the rain has blown away to the east. Winds stronger than we're expected but not a bad afternoon in all

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