West Coast Islands Blogs
Blogs (web logs) provide an ideal opportunity to explore the traditions, culture and wildlife of Wild Lochaber. We have put together a collection of local blogs and provide the titles and text snippets to give a taste of each entry with direct links to the main blog entry on the host website. We hope you will find time to explore the full articles and further information on the host blog sites.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions for blogs you would like to see here.
Treshnish Farm
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Happy New Year! Wishing you all a happy and healthy year ahead. What a relief to say goodbye to 2020. We always feel so very lucky to live where we do but during 2020 we have felt it even more so, Our lives, whilst also touched by share of loss and difficulty this year, have been...
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Tupping has finished. All the ewes have been put through the fank, they have been checked over and given a bolus with Cobalt and Selenium in it, plus a drench against liver fluke. Our first Christmas here in 1994, the ewes were all out on the hill and the tups were out on the hill with...
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Loch Pealloch, on the way to Tobermory, late November afternoon.A walk up Glenforsa, on a winters day. It seems so mountainous compared to the low Treshnish hills! At old Rhoail there is a ruined settlement, cleared of it's people nearly 200 years ago. With a newer and long ruined...
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We had a meeting earlier in the week with the RSPB - to talk about Corncrakes. Corncrake numbers are falling, and so the RSPB are embarking on a project to support farmers and crofters in doing more to enhance existing or create new habitats for Corncrakes. Dave Sexton, the Mull RSPB...
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We bought a new Herdwick tup earlier this week, and he went out with the Herdwick ewes on Thursday. We were worried there wasn't going to be a Rare Breeds sale at Dingwall this year as the one earlier in the year was cancelled. So when I saw a Herdwick tup for sale on Facebook, in...
wondering wanderers
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2020 eh- that’ll be a year no one ever forgets won’t it?! In the very early part of the year we managed fairly usual stuff – a trip to London to take in a show, meeting up with friends and visiting family, going to an award winning restaurant and generally gallivanting. We...
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Scarlett is 18! No more children in our house, just a whole load of adults now. Of course Scarlett will always be our baby though, despite the fact she is often the most responsible, sensible and adult of the lot of us!It seems this year has been filled with cancelled plans, foiled events,...
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Anyone who knows us, or has been reading here for any length of time will know we love celebrations. We love anniversaries, birthdays, marking times. We love traditions and occasions. We are not a religious family although we are very close to nature and celebrate the turning of the seasons, the...
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As it seems to have become a monthly blog just now! I guess there are only so many ways to say ‘not much has changed’. Of course that’s not strictly true. The month has changed, the season has changed, the clocks have changed, the view from the window has changed.I was sitting...
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Having had all sorts of animals as pets and as livestock I can confidently say that my favourite creature to share space with is still a cat. We have had at least one cat as a part of our household for more years than we haven’t since Ady and I set up home together and bringing Kira to the croft on...
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Having had all sorts of animals as pets and as livestock I can confidently say that my favourite creature to share space with is still a cat. We have had at least one cat as a part of our household for more years than we haven’t since Ady and I set up home together and bringing Kira to the...
Marc Calhoun
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I have only been to Little Cumbrae once, and that was way back in 2008. One highlight, among many, was climbing to the top of Little Cumbrae Castle. The castle is not actually on Little Cumbrae itself, but an adjacent tidal islet marked on the map as Castle Island. Next to this island the map shows...
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More breakfast fun in Scotland . . . On our first visit to Scotland my wife and I took my parents with us. It was 1989, and after exploring the Loch Lomond area we drove north to Fort Willian. As we approached the town we saw a vacancy sign at the Innseagan Hotel, and decided to spend the...
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A Scalpay week. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it. A week in a Gaelic speaking B&B sounded even more fascinating. A chance to practice a language I’d been studying for a few years. I also had some unfinished business on Harris: a minor island easily reached from Scalpay by a bridge. And so I...
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Over a year has passed since my last visit to the Hebrides, and another may pass before I return. I have spent some of the year writing, but most of it relaxing on my recliner. And as I do so I am the perfect image of sloth. Would an image of sloth be worthy of a statue? I hope so. I can see...
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The old peat track up Bealach Maari looked inviting. As I strolled up the track the sun blazed intensely down, and so I stopped to take my shirt off. After a minute of savouring the cooling air the midges found me. I put the shirt back on. My destination was the summit of Crògary Mòr, five miles...
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles
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James Merryweather posts videos on YouTube under the AuchtertyreAcademy imprint that may be of interest e.g. BLUEBELL deconstructing the English Jacinth. Part 1: IdentityBLUEBELL deconstructing the English Jacinth. Part 2: Life HistoryBRAINWAVE OR PIPEDREAM? will tree planting save us from...
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Two new moths have taken my total for adult moths here to 199 species: December MothScarce Umber There are fungi everywhere at the moment, but two pink ones in the garden recently are Coral Spot (Nectria cinnabarina)and Wood Blewit (Lepista nuda), both common enough generally but with rather...
