Materials Man

Lochaline at the shortest ferry trip to Mull is virtually at a dead end road, if you’re not going to Mull or the dwelling place of a few houses at Drimnin, then you need to turn back. Morven is the peninsula you are on but it feels like an island, I guess it comes from crossing on the Corran ferry and at Lochaline you have the sea meeting you. We are lucky enough to “be invited” to a converted church where in most years the majority of my wife’s family congregate. In some years it’s me the missus and her cousin, Helen. Helen is a great cook and we are welcome guinea pigs for new recipes, no fish mind you!  Fish did feature this year as Mike and Jan the owners are keen on fish, and were resident, so fresh prawns and scallops were bought in Oban and cooked that night, followed by kippers for breakfast. The reduction in ferry fares is welcome as we travelled by car on the ferry to Fishnish on Mull and by ferry passenger from Craignure to Oban, taking the bus was considered, but it has a terrible reputation for leaving on time even if the ferry is only delayed by ten minutes! Bowmans, you lost five return fares due to your reputation. This is surely not a highland way to operate?

Where we stay, on wet years the rainfall will total 1000mm, in Lochaline it can exceed 3000mm, the flora and fauna are naturally different. Chaffinchs dominate at the bird table, with a few great tits and less blue tits. A herring gull can make an appearance, using binos you can spot sea eagles from the windows, and as I emptied the kitchen peelings at the bottom of the garden the odd 11 point stag, 6 on one horn, 5 on the other!! Common lizards I confess, I have never seen in Scotland, but from clues from my brother, who was resident the week before us I took my chance of a rare sunshine break between showers to snap my first common lizards sunning themselves.

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The pics are ; the stag, common lizards, a pipe band in Oban at the start of their highland games, leaving Oban on the ferry, Ardtornish castle from the Fishnish to Lochaline ferry.

One picture I wish I could have got was a greater blacked backed gull nicking one of my  250mm mackerel from the timber pier in Lochaline, I did catch 20 odd and took 7 home, should have been 8!!

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Aren’t hover flies brilliant? inquisitive and so mobile. I have a small patch cut out of my lawn and it is sown with wild flower mixture. It is a buzz with hover flies at the moment. So I stuck the lumix on macro and had a go at some pics, I believe the hover with the white stripes is a marmalade hover fly. Look at the size of the eyes! imagine the reaction times of a hover fly in control of a tornado fighter. How wired up is a hover fly when we need highly skilled pilots with multiple computers to control a clumsy (in comparison to a hover fly) plane. Nature, not only red in tooth and claw, but exhibiting the finest flying design along with mimicry.

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Aren’t Ospreys great value? unlike blooming Harriers you can depend on them being there or thereabouts. These pics are the juvs feeding (well one is) on a rather large fish, had I been on station earlier I might have seen the fish delivered, however I listened to out of doors on the radio and it was well into daylight when i arrived, 8.15. The one not feeding was content till an adult flew over with a fish and they both started begging calls, subsequently the one not feeding kept up the calling, the adult fed in a tree nearby. If you are very observant you can see a glint of a ring on the right leg of the bird feeding. Both have been ringed, and the Marsh harriers have been wing tagged and presumably ringed as well. I found out four females and three males raised 10 young, yes birds are not as faithful as early Christian beliefs would have you believe. I had great views last week of harriers with wing tags, this week nowt.

anyway later in the garden, I spotted these snails having some sort of “gathering”  up one of my Rowan trees, guess it was to do with procreation, later when weeding I came across this orange slug, of course the internet is fantastic so within minutes it was revealed as a variant of the common black slug, never ever seen an orange slug before, did not kill it either.