Sky photo challenge: being put in my place

Ripples of Kindness has posted a challenge:

"Not unlike humans, the sky is often referred to as "angry, dark, blue, cloudy, happy, clear, etc.
If you have a photo showing the sky personified, please post your link. I’d be interested in seeing what emotion you caught with your camera when you looked up at the sky."


I took this photo on Matinicus Rock, about 20 miles off the Downeast Maine coast. I was out there on this tiny island - mainly inhabited by terns, puffins and razorbills - as a volunteer for the National Audubon Society's Seabird Restoration Project, otherwise known as Project Puffin. It was my third summer doing a two-week stint observing puffins, banding them, and trying to dodge angry tern parents while moving about the island. I had witnessed lots of interesting weather phenomenons over the three summers I spent there, including the Northern Lights. However, this photo captured the coolest phenomenon I saw.

A front moved through from the west and this line of clouds in the picture came over us, according to our weather instruments, at about 70 miles an hour. It was so low to the ground I swear if I had climbed to the top of the lighthouse I would have been able to touch it. The emotion I experienced was one of being put in my place by Mother Nature. "Don't be complacent" she was telling me, "never take a peaceful sky for granted."