Morning View

The view out of the window at Claires', in the morning. We are looking across the Umeå River Delta. The delta is a nature reserve, due to its importance to migrating birds. Yesterday it was very wild with a near gale blowing in from the sea. Now, at 9 0'clock,  it's totally calm. The clouds are just forming as the first thermals lift up from the sun-warmed ground.
After a slow morning we went off to another nature reserve on the far side of the delta, Stora Tuvan, where the white-backed woodpecker breeds. This bird is very rare in Scandinavia and so most of the fir trees on this nature reserve have been chopped down, to encourage the deciduous trees this bird prefers.
By the time we were home the clouds pictured here had grown into cumulonimbus and poured rain down further inland. The breeze blowing in from the sea kept the storms away from us and the coast in general, and as I write this the water is perfectly flat once more and the storms are over.