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.
Marc Calhoun
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There is only one spot remaining on my 2020 cruise on Hjalmar Bjorge (for a female sharing a cabin). We plan to make a loop around the Western Isles, departing Oban April 25, returning May 4. Details can be found on the above 2020 Guided Cruise tab, and this Northern Lights page.Note...
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The Loganair flight out of Cork was late getting to Glasgow on September 24. So it was nearly 5pm by the time I drove out of the airport, crossed the Erskine Bridge, and then followed the A82 to Loch Lomond. Twenty minutes later I left the highway to take the Luss Bypass - a narrow stretch of the...
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Monday the 23rd of September dawned cloudy and dry - but it would turn out to get wet, very very wet. I'd decided to spend my last full day in Ireland visiting an island. But it would not be a deserted island like lonely Inishglora. It would be the busiest island in all of Ireland. Cork city...
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September 21 was an overcast, gray, Dingle day. After breakfast all but one of the ropes were released, and then Mark used it to expertly warp us away from the dock. Dingle - a parting viewUnlike our sunny arrival two days before, low clouds hung over the iron lighthouse at the mouth of Dingle...
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On Friday, September 20, we woke to promising sunshine. After breakfast I jumped ship and walked to the Oifig Failte, the tourist welcome center. I was hoping to have a cab take me out to Slea Head, ten miles to the west, then walk the Dingle Way back to town. The friendly attendant at the tourist...
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After leaving Inishbofin on September 19th - see the last post - we motored five hours south to the Aran Isles. It was dark by the time we arrived at Kilronan, the main harbour on Inishmore. It had been 25 years since I'd last been here and, in the dark, things looked a lot different. A large pier...
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After our early morning visit to Inishkea North we motored south for three hours, passing along the way the pointy tip of Achill Head. After rounding the east headland of Inishbofin Island, a turn to starboard lead us to Bofin Harbour, one of the best natural harbours in the west of Ireland. With...
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After our visit to Inishglora there was not much daylight left, so Mark and Tim decided to make a short motor to an island with a sheltered anchorage that they'd spotted on the chart. Luckily for me, that island was Inishkea North- another of my asterisked isles. We dropped anchor a 500 feet off...
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles
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A woodlouse found on the recent SNG outing turns out to be Philoscia affinis, a cryptic species only recorded in the UK in 2017 but likely to have been here for many a year as an undiscovered native. For now, this is the most northerly record on the planet. Philoscia affinis Image N....
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I have just spotted that this was never posted at the end of May, so for the record….. One of the few remaining tetrads with no records ever was NG32H to the west of Eynort and south of Talisker Bay. On Tuesday Neil and I chose to walk in from Eynort and sorted that out with 136 records. We...
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Seven members of Skye Nature Group circumnavigated (well, nearly) Loch Eadar dà Bhaile, the loch between the townships of Balachuirn and Balameanach on Wednesday. This is a rich loch in which the vegetation is slowly covering the open water. We recorded 122 plants of which only Hypericum...
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My tour of Duckweed (Lemna) sites on Skye was successful in that I re-found the plants in nine out of ten places. However, none of them was convincingly Lemna gibba (Fat Duckweed) – see previous post. I am keeping specimens for molecular work as and when a DNA test becomes available. Skye...
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Skye Nature Group went to Score Horan on Saturday. Emma captured this cranefly which Seth thinks may be Tipula pagana (Murdo also says probably, but reserves judgment until he sees it). If so, it is the first Skye record on NBN. Tipula pagana probably We also found the Common Striped Woodlouse,...
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Having found Quercus cerris (Turkey Oak) I thought I had better check for knopper galls on the local oaks of other species as Q. cerris is required for the completion of the life cycle of the gall wasp. It was only discovered in the north of Scotland in 2010 when it was found in Moray, but last...
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A few weeks ago I discovered that the Forestry had planted some Chamaecyparis lawsoniana (Lawson’s Cypress) near Temptation Hill on Raasay. Then yesterday I spotted a single specimen of Quercus cerris (Turkey Oak) near Inverarish: Quercus cerris (Turkey Oak) Quercus cerris (Turkey Oak) Both...
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I found this: It is here. But be aware that it is a 36MB pdf intended to be printed on A0 paper. There is also one for monocots alone. APG is the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group and APG IV (2016) is the latest classification for the orders and families of flowering plants.
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This was the subject of a poster and exhibit I produced for the Scottish Botanists’ Conference last Saturday. Its component parts and the associated notes are available to download as a pdf from a link here.
wondering wanderers
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I realised the other day I had been misrepresenting myself. When you move somewhere new, or start a new job, join a new club, meet a new social circle, or in the case of me do all of the above at once to a degree your slate is wiped clean. No one here really had much prior knowledge of me...
Treshnish Farm
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We were trying to remember when we bought the tractor. It was either in 1997 or 1999. Massey Ferguson stopped manufacturing the 135 in 1975 so it was at least more than 20 years old more by then.We had stayed the night before the sale at the Spital of Glenshee Hotel, where we had...
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