Another Beautiful June Day

We had some useful rain yesterday morning - 5mm according to my new rain gauge - enough to please the garden plants and encourage the fodder growing in the fields but not to set the burns running again, so the problems with water supply over on the north coast are likely to continue. Today has been another quite beautiful day, with the sun out from dawn to dusk, though the wind, settling into the northwest, has had a chill to it.

All this sunshine has also pleased our local thrush. We don't think we have ever heard one sing as long and as cheerfully as this character. He has various vantage points from which he performs, mostly the tops of fir trees in our two neighbouring crofts, but he also stops by our window on this steel post to give us a quick rendition of his latest ballad. Perhaps it's to thank us for the food we put out for him.

The basking sharks are reported to have arrived, unusually early. No fewer than six were seen together from the top of Ardnamurchan lighthouse the other day, feeding on a large bloom of plankton; and the first minke whale made an appearance in the Sound of Mull over a month ago. We've had the usual sightings of sea otters and grey seals, and we've seen a sea eagle soaring over the Sound of Mull in the last couple of days.

A reminder that wildlife sightings can be reported on Kilchoan Community Centre's website, here, as well as by writing them on the whiteboard in the Centre.