Thunderstorms

Yesterday the weather, after almost a week-long spell of sunshine and temperatures soaring to 19C, reverted to winter.  A strong westerly, gusting at times to force 5, brought in cold air and thunderstorms, with hail falling and the tops of the bens, including Ben Hiant, powdered with snow again.  During the early evening we had a spectacular display of lightning. The power dipped but didn't going off.

Nan MacLachlan's lambs had a warm spot in which to shelter.

'Loch Linnhe' to the Rescue

It's a grainy picture taken at extreme range, but it shows the moment this morning when the Loch Linnhe, the Kilchoan-Tobermory ferry, was picking up a diver who had become separated from his dive boat when it lost power near the New Rocks.  The full story is on the Tobermory Lifeboat Facebook page, here.

Many thanks to Out&About for drawing my attention to the event.

Otter's Holt

We had the pleasure this morning of enjoying the hospitality of the Culcheths, owners of Otter's Holt, one of Kilchoan's letting houses.  It's situated at the very top of the Old Golf Course, surrounded by trees on either side but....

....with superb views out across Kilchoan Bay, Glas Eilean, and the Sound of Mull towards Mull itself....

 ....while at the back of the house there's access to open miles of moorland and up to Glas Bheinn.

One of the features of this house is the wildlife that surrounds it.  For anyone who wants to see pine martens in their natural habitat, this is THE place to stay, while the trees are festooned with bird feeders which bring in, amongst masses of other small birds, one of my favourites, redpolls.

Otters Holt is usually heavily booked in summer, but a cancellation has made a couple of prime weeks in August available.  Contact is through the website here.

The Raptor

The Raptor is our local ornithological expert so, whenever I get a lucky shot like this one, it's emailed to him for his opinion.

"Definitely a sparrow hawk," came the rapid reply. "Not sure if it's a male or female, but I'd go with female due to the lighter body. The books have the male with a slightly orangey under body, while the female is paler."

Then, today, I get another email. "On my walk with Callan this morning I came across a pair of redpoll. Now don't ask if they were lesser or common but they were a male and a female. And I had my first sighting of a swallow at 0920 on Friday 10th April. They do arrive from April but I think this is a wee bit early for us. All these sightings were between the cattle grid and the silage bails along the main road."

The Raptor has a wonderful camera, but there was no accompanying picture of either redpolls or swallows. I've even given him a memory stick to make it easy for him to send them.  So I don't think either redpolls or swallows count until we've seen a picture.

All we've seen, beside a high-flying sparrow hawk, is swans heading north and this, our resident song thrush, who is now singing beautifully from the tops of local trees.

Finding Money

Each time the Suffolk branch of the family comes to Ardnamurchan, we mount an expedition to the Shelly Beach, the one tucked in behind Rubha an Duin Bhain to the northeast of Sanna.  This time we reached it by leaving the car on the Sanna side of Achnaha, and walking along the old Achnaha-Plocaig track.

Plocaig is an abandoned village, one which was once more populated than Sanna but which died in the early years of the 20th century when the new road was built to Sanna, leaving the people of Plocaig with a rough track and a burn to cross, the latter being achieved by some stepping stones laid many, many years ago.

The Shelly Beach is one that it infrequently visited but someone had been there recently and created this lovely artwork.  We particularly enjoyed the pair of decorously placed limpet shells.

We go to the Shelly Beach for.... the shells, with which it abounds.  It has far more of them than any other West Ardnamurchan beach, but what's most important is that it has one particular shell, the pinkish one seen at bottom right of the picture - the northern cowrie - Trivia arctic or T. monacha - the species are indistinguishable except to the expert.

Why collect cowries?  Well, they're not easy to find elsewhere, there are just enough of them to collect a few but not too many, they're rather pretty and.... well, they're money.  The 'money cowrie', Monetary moneta, is probably the best known, having been used as currency in both Africa and Asia for hundreds of years, and well illustrates how the basis of currency doesn't have to be a precious metal like gold, it simply has to be something which is difficult to find or make, and is accepted as a unit of exchange by all.  Hence the bitcoin, the currency of the internet, which is 'mined' by computers.

It's quite amazing how a search like this draws in even quite 'normal' adults.  They found a few cowries but, between them, the two girls collected over a hundred, and discussed the possibility of taking them to the shop to see if they'd be acceptable in exchange for sweets.