So, there was this pigeon cooing just outside the window (and you all thought I was done ...), and I won't say who but one of the very respected journalists around here who, incidentally, expressed some scepticism about Topics' recent editorial interest in the goings on of the avian class, was vocal about getting the bird reporter on the case.
Not that I'm an ungracious winner, but I will take this short moment to say, I told you BirdWatch 2024 was a good idea, so there.
Sadly, though, for me and what I am sure is an overwhelming horde of dedicated, quiet Australian readers so enthralled with BirdWatch that they wouldn't dare write a letter telling me to stop, this particular journalistic chicken wing had precious little meat to speak of.
The pigeon incident was investigated (we opened the window), the bird fled the perch, and the highly respected journalist retracted the threat of going full Colonel Sanders if the sky rat didn't pipe down.
Even by Topics' standards, that yarn's a bit thin. So, as the campaign takes a short hiatus awaiting further developments, this reporter has graduated to that other great source of news: yelling at clouds.
A spectacular blanket of high-altitude atmospheric action was captured over the city on a sunny and chilled Thursday afternoon, June 13.
Ethereal whips of hair-like cirrus fibratus, accompanied by a fleece of cirrus floccus (or perhaps more likely a mid-altitude altocumulus) forming in the icy upper atmosphere made for a dramatic vista over the city, set against a clear sky and a chilly top of around 16 degrees.
The long whisps of cloud commonly called 'mares tails' are typically formed anywhere between 4000 and 20,000 metres above the earth's surface when warm air rises and water vapour freezes in the upper atmosphere.
They can be a fickle species, sometimes indicating the possibility of wet weather ahead and sometimes fair, and cloud watchers say it's not unusual to see the whispy fibratus paired with other cirrus varieties.
The floccus, which gets its name from the Latin for 'lock of wool', appears as ragged groups or heaps of clouds either connected or in close proximity to each other. They're defined as "frazzled" cloud conglomerates and can sometimes be mistaken for altocumulus.
The latter - which is commonly called a 'mackerel sky' - is a middle-altitude cloud that belongs mainly to the stratocumuliform (I've been researching clouds for over an hour. Can you even imagine what my targeted ads must look like?) and appear in masses or patches that are typically larger and darker than the cirrocumulus.
A mackerel sky tends to forecast a change; as the old rhyme goes, "'mackerel sky, mackerel sky - never long wet, never long dry".
A cirrocumulus mackerel sky is made up of wispier, patchier, higher clouds.
Now, as is well established, Topics is but a simple scribbler and should not be relied upon for medical, weather or economic advice (but if you ask us nicely, we'll have a red hot go at it).
This notwithstanding, with our eyes turned ever to the sky for any bird news, we can't help but notice what else is going on up there. And with that ironclad qualification, our infallibly trustworthy forecast is this: it might be sunny tomorrow. Or it might not.
The boffins at the Bureau of Meteorology say there was a fair chance of rain Thursday night and a near certain chance of a wet start to the weekend with between three and 20 millimetres expected, but they've been wrong before. When in doubt, we can always look out the window.
