A Basking Shark Summer

The seas off West Ardnamurchan have seen an unusual number of basking sharks this year. Davie Ferguson reported the most off the Lighthouse - nine at one time - and they've been spotted off Ardnamurchan Point almost every day, much to the joy of visitors to the Visitors' Centre. These photos were taken three days ago, by Trevor Potts, who runs the excellent little campsite in Ormsaigbeg.

There were six in all, moving gently across an area just below Glengorm Castle. When he spotted them, Trevor cut the engine and allowed his boat to drift, with the result that he came remarkably close without disturbing them.

It isn't only basking sharks that seem to be having a good year. On Wednesday, one fisherman reported hauling no fewer than 105 mackerel out of the sea just to the west of Ormsaigbeg. These were distributed round the village, the Diary receiving ten beautiful fish.

A Perfect Day

At six this evening, when this photo was taken, the air temperature, in the shade, still stood at 19C. It's been a perfect, late summer day, so warm that the Diary, having kayaked to the west of Kilchoan to a beautiful secluded shingle beach, took a swim. The last time the Diary swam in British waters was in the 1970s.

Ardnamurchan's Heather in Bloom

High on the south-facing slopes of Druim na Gearr Leacainn, above Ormsaigbeg, the heather is now in full flower.

In places the ground is thickly carpeted in blooms, the bushes varying slightly in colour. Most of the heather is 'ling', the smaller-flowered, traditional heather variety of the Scottish hills, which tends towards lilac.

It's another wonderful year for heather. These photos, taken late yesterday on a dull afternoon, hardly do the colours justice. As soon as the sun comes out again, the Diary is off to the hills to the east of Ockle, where the heather is often even more spectacular.

The Annual Weeding-Out

The Diary freely admits that it is a bit of an idiot when it comes to feeding wild birds. Our front garden is a forest of posts and poles from which hang a mass of feeders, many home-made, offering a wide range of avian delicacies. Paradoxically, we also keep two cats, but the older one is too fat and lazy to hunt and the main bird feeders are protected from the younger by a system of wire caging.

This summer, with the warm weather in May and June, saw an unusually large hatch of small birds, like this friendly little goldfinch who, replete with bird seed, couldn't be bothered to fly away when we approached.

Sparrows, chaffinches, goldfinches, dunnocks and the tit families have done particularly well - though we appear to have lost our precious coal tits - and, while they have stuck around, the beautiful yellowhammers haven't been quite as successful as usual. But this has come at a terrible price in bird food, now bought by the sack and delivered to the door by carrier.

So it was with some relief that we welcomed this character to Ormsaigbeg. One of them appears every year, but this one has been expensively late in arriving.

Some people don't like sparrow hawks but the Diary has no problem with them. In fact, it's a pleasure to watch them hunt, flying low and fast along the drystone walls and crashing into the bushes after their prey. All being well, in the next few weeks this one will weed out a high proportion of the small birds, leaving us with a comfortable number to nurture through the coming winter.

Yeoman Bontrup

For readers following the Yeoman Bontrup saga, there is a report on her present whereabouts in the last comment here - many thanks to the reader who sent it in - and pictures of her here.