Some may have thought it looked like a rocket being fired down a street in Middlemarch, or perhaps Harry Potter’s broom stick needed an oil change. But to Strath Taieri locals, it was just another Taieri Pet. Strath Taieri Hotel publican Jim McDougall said he went outside to do some “odd jobs” at the hotel on Tuesday afternoon, and immediately noticed the large elongated cloud, stretching up Snow Ave. “I’m not a photographer — I can’t even spell photography — but I’ve actually just bought myself some good camera gear and I thought it would be a good time to try it out. “I think I might have fluked that one.” Taieri Pet is the affectionate term given by Strath Taieri residents, to UFO-shaped lenticular cloud formations that regularly appear in the skies over the area. It usually forms when strong winds blow over the steep Rock and Pillar Range, causing water vapour in the rising air to condense. Mr McDougall said he had seen Taieri Pets in “hundreds of different shapes” over the years, but this one looked particularly interesting.He said he had started photographing them because friends overseas did not believe he had pet clouds. “I travel a hell of a lot and you tell people, ‘you know, we’ve got a pet cloud,’ and they go, ‘oh yeah, pull the other one’.” He agreed, this particular Taieri Pet did look remarkably like a rocket flying over Middlemarch. “It was quite a good one,” he said. john.lewis@odt.co.nz
