A Damp Sanna

Sanna beach on a damp October day isn't, at first sight, the most cheerful of places to spend a few hours. Much of its white sands are covered in kelp thrown ashore during the recent bad weather, with....

....mixed in with it, a variety of flotsam, ranging from the markers for public footpaths (where did that come from?), sodden planks, and odd wellington boots, through to...

....discarded fishermen's boots (how on earth did he lose that boot?)....

....to the usual collection of used plastic bottles which, despite every legal effort to prevent rubbish being thrown overboard from ships, still finds its way ashore.

Then there are the corpses. In the picture above, the remains of one of this year's seal pups has been heavily scavenged by seagulls.

Yet, despite the low cloud and the occasional spot of rain pushed on by a nagging wind, the place remains stunningly beautiful, a grey landscape resting after the brightness of summer, bracing itself for the winter gales. Walking across the sands was a pleasure, a chance to clear the mind, an opportunity to breath lungfulls of cool, clean air - an escape marred briefly by mild irritation at finding a footprint on sand smoothed by the previous night's tide: someone else had enjoyed this emptiness before us.

Mink Hunt - 2

As we said in the last post on this matter - here - this is some mink. The Brigand - as he's now called - is still alive and well, feeding on fresh chicken, and defying all that Tom Bryson's technology can throw at him.

The Brigand originally got into the hen house by pushing his nose under the shutter that came down at night. Unfortunately, he couldn't do the same from the inside, which explains why he didn't remove some of his victims, so had to try to gnaw his way out. He hadn't finished the job when Tom confronted him - and he escaped.

Tom has now modified the door so The Brigand can't make a similar entry.

On Friday and Saturday, the traps in the shed where Hughie's cockerel was killed were baited with pieces from the corpse, and The Brigand, despite an array of tunnel and Fenn traps, gratefully ate the lot.

Yesterday, with the final remains of the cockerel hanging over traps, Tom and The Raptor went out to the shed to check on progress, to be confronted by the mink, who had stripped the carcass bare. Leaving The Raptor to hiss at him - mink are curious beasts - Tom ran for his gun but, by the time he returned, The Brigand had made his escape.

One of Tom's dead hens is now the bait (above). Two of the Fenn traps can be seen next to it. There are two more within a metre, and the shed is surrounded by tunnel traps, one of them, by way of a change of menu, baited with a roasted chicken leg.

An infra-red camera, capable of taking both video and stills, has been deployed to watch over the main chicken runs. If we're lucky, it might provide a picture of the elusive Brigand for The Diary.

Meanwhile, back home and nothing daunted, Tom is busy rearing the next generation of chickens. There's plenty of advice for him on the web, such as here, but this looks like being a long battle.

This is one hell of a mink.

Maritime Matters

Many thanks to those of you who explained the presence of foreign warships steaming up the Sound last Wednesday - see post here. There's a major exercise, called Joint Warrior 112, going on to the north of us involving NATO and other forces - more details here - which might also explain why this military helicopter flew low over the peninsula yesterday morning. The exercise continues until the 17th October, a fact which is troubling fishermen operating in the area as the GPS system is being jammed, something they weren't warned about.

Aware of what happened to HMS Astute, there are plenty of us here who continue to be very worried about the continuing lack of a Coastguard tug in the Minches. All four Coastguard tugs were withdrawn at the end of September when their contract wasn't renewed, despite dire warnings from everyone who lives around here. The Stornoway and Shetland tugs were reprieved for three months, but they're not back on station. Bureaucratic bungling or what?

New Zealand Adventure

Our daughter Rachael came up with us to Kilchoan when we bought the shop in 1996. She's had a wonderful upbringing in this tiny community, getting to know locals and visitors alike though her work in the shop and Post Office. She could not have found a friendlier, more supportive place to spend her early years, and it has given her the confidence to face whatever adventures lie ahead.

Four years ago she went up to Edinburgh University. Now, with her boyfriend Ben McKeown, who has been working on the Ardnamurchan Estate for some months, she's off to New Zealand on a one-year working visa.

It is one of the sad things about this village that its young people have to leave to make their way in the world, something which they all do with consummate success. But they leave with the knowledge that, wherever they go and however long they're away, there's always a warm welcome when they come home.

More and More Kilchoan Sunshine

We've had 42mm of rain the the 24 hours up to 8am this morning, and in the preceding 12 hours we had 12mm, making a total of 54mm - that's well over two inches in all. The ground is sodden, Pier Road is flooded, the burns are roaring torrents, and The Diary's second daughter has gone back to Essex shaking her head in wonder that any humans choose to live here.

The stream just along from our house, which normally ends in a pool at the top of the beach, the water soaking away through the pebbles, has cut a steep-sided gash across the beach. When this picture was taken late yesterday afternoon, an otter and two gulls were squabbling for spoils brought down by the flood.

Some of us are beginning to look around for something that might do as an Ark.