Revisiting another of my favourite spots today, on the protracted Farewell to Fife tour 😉🙂

One of the things I love about walking in Fife in the summer is this kind of thing. Whole fields swaying in the wind 🙂

Today however, was a brisk 8km loop up Geallaig Hill. Very windy but lovely, high, open walking 🙂

The skies mostly looked like this today. Clearly very windy!

It's been a good week at work - nice to get up to the peatland restoration site to do a bit of maintenance, and satisfying to have repaired a few steps at Linn of Dee that were showing their age. Also VERY nice to again feel the reassuring cosiness of a thick warm hat this week 😉 #rangerdailydiary

Another example of pine sawfly damage. A healthy tree vs a defoliated one. Most of the time, the sawfly caterpillars pupate before the new needles become palatable, which helps the tree to recover. But not always. This year the emergence feels later, and therefore new needles are being eaten too.

Didn't even realise there were eels in the Dee till I spotted these the other day (at Banchory)

A cooler day today, with a high of 17.6C. The wind was bonkers but it did at least mean not being pestered by insects on the hill 🙂 Not great for the Scotch Burnet moths though, who were clinging on for dear life!

And we've done it! All time Danish record of 36.4C broken with 37C. Previous June record (from 1947) beaten by a full 1.5C. Also warmest tropical night on record. Previous record was August 1975* *Not a typo for UK readers, 1975 was was warmer than 1976 in Denmark. www.dr.dk/nyheder/vejr...

Two dips yesterday, on different parts of Deeside. I'm certainly no fan of heat but as it's the only kind of weather that can entice me into the rivers, I've grown to accept that it CAN have an upside 😉

Beautifully green and damp last night on patrol, but........not a breath of wind. Yep, midge nets were out! 😬 #rangerdailydiary

First weekend of the school holidays....and right on cue came the BBQs and a campfire 🙄 #rangerdailydiary

This sawfly landed on my window today. Wee beauty! I *think* it's Tenthredopsis nassata but many sawflies are disappointingly difficult to identify. Looks lovely, whatever it is! #rangerdailydiary

Met two lovely ladies from Paris today, who said they'd coincidentally chosen the best two weeks possible for their summer holiday in Scotland. First time here, and interestingly they said they'd be booking to come back next summer too. The cooler weather had clearly swung it for them.

Opening up the ranger hut this morning and was greeted by this.....slap bang in the centre of the doorway, right where visitors' heads are likely to be. I love wasps but sometimes I swear they do it deliberately 😉

The sight & sound of flowing water this PM, for those of you who are feeling overheated and/or land-locked 🥵 Hasn't actually been that hot here today (nudged 27.5C), but it was the warmest of recent days. It's been dry the last week or so, but it's nice to see more water in the Dee this year 🙂👍

High of 24.5C today, and I finally got the first swim of 2026 . Better late than never, and I made up for lost time by having a second swim lower down the glen on the ride out 🙂 Perfect conditions before the onset of what is easily the worst month of the year, with its midges, clegs and 'July Fly' 😬

Bedroom temperature didn't fall below 27C last night. That's after keeping windows and blinds shut all day before opening in late evening. 1950s house with cavity wall insulation and double glazing. This is the big danger of these heatwaves - inability to recover overnight.

25.9C the high in the Lomond Hills yesterday. That's the hottest June day there since 2018. #Fife

High of 17.9C in the Lomond Hills today, and 19.2C at Mar Lodge. Modest temps but the humidity is lethargy-inducing.

Just been checking the forecast for where my dad lives in Worcestershire. Nope, nothing to see here. It's just summer, innit.

Something no one has ever seen before: a Met Office forecast for somewhere in the UK (in this case, Reading) with two consecutive days of 40°C Whether or not this happens, the fact it is within the range of possible scenarios should give a loud warning of the climate we are now in

London has never seen 3 consecutive days above 37C (99F) the most was 2 days in July 2022. There’s a reasonably good chance this will happen next week in June when 34.8C is current highest June temperature at Heathrow and St James’s Park set in 1976.

I’m still trying to fully comprehend that we’re looking at three consecutive days of temperatures around 3°C higher than any previously recorded in the UK in June

Chilly morning , down to 1.6C here at Mar Lodge 🙂

8C and got the fire lit this evening to take the slight chill off the living room 🤪

The light streaming out of the Quoich this evening was something else 🙂 #rangerdailydiary

Very quiet patrol this evening. Can't think why? 🤔

If you regularly follow ensemble forecasts, you get a better sense of how the climate is changing because you see multiple possibilities — including extreme events that don’t always happen. Even just for the UK, the rapid increase in exceptionally hot scenarios in the last 5 years is staggering.

Crikey. Just doing a clear-out and found Mum’s old Homepride Book of Home Baking. Just look at the first sentence of the book 😬

Extraordinary heat on Met Office high res model for Monday 38C/100F. Current national record high for June is 35.6C set in 1976. June is coolest summer month typically and hottest temperature of entire 20th century in UK was 37.1C in early August in 1990. Things are changing fast.

When I moved to Braemar I still had one foot in Fife, but over the last couple of years that's become more like a single, small toe. And after August it won't even be that 😢 So I'm trying to revisit favourite places in Fife and Kinross-shire b4 the door closes. I'll miss this place so much!

Popped up at random on my iPod (yes, iPod!) today. Hadn't heard it for years and had completely forgotten what a gem it is 🙂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLkp...

The things you end up doing in life that you never envisaged: this week I became a remote location chimney sweep at Corrour Bothy in the #Cairngorms.

Scottish ski resorts celebrate best season in eight years www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/ou... #skiing #snowboarding #scotland #cairngorm #glenshee #glencoe #thelecht #nevisrange

Living in London, well over ten years ago now, 32°C days were rare and very unpleasant, living in a studio flat with no air conditioning and dealing with London infrastructure that wasn't built for the heat. North of 35° will be an order of magnitude worse.

When I grew up in the West Midlands in the 1980s, 28C was an exceptionally hot day. Living with those (now modest) summer temperatures was enough to persuade me to move north. Frequent 30C+ every summer would be unbearable to me now.

Not many years ago seeing 39°C predicted by a GFS run for London would have been astonishing, even when looking 12 days ahead. Now it still draws attention but with past experience telling us that yes, it really can become that hot in this part of the world.

I do get fed up hearing people complain about midgies and whether they’re “out” in a particular place when really it’s ticks they should be worried about. I also know there’s too many deer around but what do they all feed on? They can’t all find a host surely?

Half of June gone, and the mean temperature of 11C currently has it tracking as the coldest June of my dataset. Not that this means a huge amount, given I said the same about May when we were half way through last month 🤔

Two tick bites from a brief walk off-path led to this month's effort for @walkhighlands.co.uk. I particularly enjoyed writing this one. Not sure what that says about me though! 😱😆

A chilly start to this June morning, down to -1.8C just before 5am.

More than a week of June gone, and it's currently running just 0.3C below my long term average. Not as abnormally cold as you might think - we've just become accustomed to warmer summer months in recent years. Haven't had a properly chilly June in the Lomonds since 2015.

Still some snow hanging-on fairly low down on the White Mounth. Not sure of the exact height but around 750m?

Another Deeside day off 🙂 I know it's a week day 'n' all but.....I had a 29km trundle on the bike and didn't see another person until the 29th kilometre!

Gooooooorgeous wee ruby-tailed wasp, right outside the estate office door this afternoon. Tiny but easily one of our most beautiful creatures 🙂 #rangerdailydiary

An unnerving sight when you're on fire patrol as it can easily be mistaken for smoke 😱 But this was the scene today around Braemar, with scots pine pollen being whipped up by the wind and giving the glens a pale yellow haze.

Lovely soundtrack of willow warblers and redstarts for this afternoon's stroll 🙂

It's that time of year again when puddles turn yellow, everything gets covered in a weird dust, and the ranger service panics cos it looks like the woodland is smoking 😱 It's fine though, it's just scots pine releasing flippin' great clouds of pollen. Endlessly fascinating, especially in slo-mo!

With views like this it's not hard to imagine that the woodland resumes on the other side of the distant hills.....and just keeps going. Expansive as it is, it doesn't.....but it's nice to dream.