Winter Resident Blackcaps

Mr and Mrs Blackcap have now been with us for about a month and during that time they've asserted themselves, taking no nonsense from any of the other birds, not even the great tits, when it comes to who has prime rights on the peanuts.

Their favourite food is still the sultanas. for which they have special dispensers which are only, occasionally, invaded by one other bird - the blue tits. The blackcaps are healthy eaters, which has meant that our supply of old sultanas has now run out, so Mrs Diary's already stretched Christmas food budget has had to accommodate the purchase of two bags of best sultanas to keep them going through the festive season.

According to the British Trust for Ornithology, these blackcaps aren't our summer blackcaps, who have the good sense to move south every winter to warm places like Spain and North Africa. The ones we see in our gardens in winter come from Central Europe or Scandinavia - see BTO article here - and move here to overwinter because of the number of feeders in British gardens.

We were worried that our pair might leave us and move south, but if these are European ones, then we may have them here, feasting off our sultanas, for the rest of the winter.

Solar Searchlights

The winter solstice, the annual moment when the north pole is pointed at its greatest angle away from the sun, occurred at 4.49 this morning, with the result that the length of time the sun spends above the horizon in any place in the northern hemisphere is at its shortest.

Our problem isn't how much time the sun appears above the horizon but whether the clouds get out of the way to allow it to shine on us, but, to celebrate today's event, the clouds did clear and the sun did make an appearance. This didn't happen until getting on for ten o'clock, when a line of cumulus along the southern horizon began to allow a few gaps, through which streamers of sunlight shot upwards, very much resembling the aurora at its best.

No-one seemed to be dancing around any of our ancient monuments, in the way they do around Stonehenge, but there was almost a gale blowing and we had a couple of sharp showers which would have dampened anyone's enthusiasm. Yet this is a moment for celebration, as it means the daylight hours will be lengthening, albeit slowly at first, and the solstice always seems to be one of the milestones of the winter - and we've passed it.

Gales

The Lord of the Isles came up the Sound just after three this afternoon, on a day of strong westerly winds with gusts rising to gale force. Many of CalMac's ferry sailings were disrupted. More gales are forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday.

Missed Aurora

It is intensely frustrating to sit indoors and listen to the rain spattering against the window, and know that, above the clouds, an aurora is lighting the skies.

Last night's magnetometer trace from the Willowbank Observatory on Mull suggests we missed a treat.

Hughie's Apportionment

Some time ago Hughie suggested I look at a stone structure which stands on a low hill in his apportionment in Kilchoan. An apportionment in this sense is an area of land in a township's common grazings which, by agreement of the township committee, a crofter is allowed to fence for his/her exclusive use which, in Hughie's case, means keeping pigs. To my knowledge, three of Kilchoan township's seven crofters have apportionments, of whom Hughie is one.

Hughie's apportionment runs from the Sanna turn by the fire station, where he keeps his pigs, and....

 ....for some distance along the Sanna road. It includes a short stretch of the Millburn above the Fire Station, and a second, un-named burn which has cut the deep glen in this picture. The burn drains both Lochan nan Ealachan, the lochan of the swans, seen in the distance here, and Lochan na Crannaig, and is now used as part of Kilchoan's water supply.

We found the stone structure quite easily, but it's one of those archaeological remains which is very difficult to interpret. It most resembles two shieling huts - to left and right in this picture - with some sort of enclosure between.

There are other archaeological structures on the apportionment, including this cairn near the glen. It may just be a field cairn - a pile of rocks thrown there when the fields were first cleared - but the rocks are large and would normally have been used for walls or buildings, so this may be something else.

This is a geological rather than an archaeological feature, a rock, probably a gabbro, which has weathered to form a strange pattern.

Hughie's apportionment includes this waterfall on the Millburn, probably one of the best waterfalls on West Ardnamurchan but quite difficult to access as it lies in another steep-sided glen.

As can be seen from the photographs, our visit yesterday was on a miserably wet day, but almost exactly five years ago, on 19th December 2010, we climbed down into the glen....

....to look at an icefall.