Cloud curl

After a night of continuous heavy rain the world was sodden this morning, but by 11 am it had dried out enough for us to go and survey a nearby site. The grassland was looking very tired, the combined effects of a long spell of hot, dry weather followed by a week of rainy conditions. There were some brief spells of sunshine, and a few insects emerged during those, but activity was much lower than on our last visit just over three weeks ago.   

Towards lunchtime the sky became worryingly dark, with some amazing cloud formations. A stiff breeze felt like the forerunner to rain, so we decided that it might be best to call it a day, especially when we saw a heavy rain shower on the other side of the valley. In fact it stayed fine for most of the afternoon which allowed me to get some gardening done, but once again it has bucketed down this evening. Typical British summer!