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.
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles
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Joanna has sent some additional Skye records from the summer, which include two new vice-county records: Echinops bannaticus (Blue Globe-thistle) in Broadford and Phedimus (Sedum) kamtschaticus (Kamchatka Stonecrop) at Lonmore. Phedimus (Sedum) kamtschaticus (Kamchatka Stonecrop) I have the...
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Neil spotted some galls on the box hedges in Raasay House Walled Garden so I went to have a look. Galls on Box (Buxus sempervirens) There seems little doubt that these small cabbage-like galls are caused by the psyllid Psylla buxi, but an official record can wait until we can actually...
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Joanna, who has recently been appointed as Joint BSBI Vice-county Recorder for VC104, has been busy with some difficult plants on Skye. She has found more Polypodium x mantoniae (Manton’s Polypody, the hybrid between P. interjectum and P. vulgare) near Coral Beach, north of Dunvegan Polypodium x...
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I was away for most of September, but towards the end of the month Skye Botany Group went to Drinan in the hope of re-finding Sorbus rupicola (Rock Whitebeam), last recorded there in 1987. We failed on that, but there is plenty more difficult rocky coastline to explore. The MacAlister Tomb is...
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Skye Botany Group went to Dunvegan Head on Thursday and added a number of species to the 10 km square NG15: Carex extensa (Long-bracted Sedge)Carex laevigata (Smooth-stalked Sedge)Carex otrubae (False Fox-sedge)Circaea lutetiana (Enchanter’s-nightshade)Lysimachia minima (Chaffweed)Sonchus...
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The vast majority of recent additions to the VC104 plant list are alien species, mostly garden escapes or throw-outs. Way back in May Joanna found something at Dunvegan which, in the absence of flowers, I thought might be one of the Astilbe x arendsii group. (See comments on this post.) Now we have...
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The Skye Botany Group outing to Ardnish continues to yield results. One of the Euphrasia samples taken for expert determination turned out to be Euphrasia heslop-harrisonii as recorded in earlier surveys. The other four were “hybrids” of Euphrasia arctica x heslop-harrisonii though to...
Marc Calhoun
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I have an article in the current Scottish Islands Explorer Magazine about Eilean Righ, the King's Isle of Loch Craignish. It was once part of a ritual landscape; just five miles away stands the hill of Dunadd, where the early kings of Dalriada were inaugurated; and two miles to the east is...
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I have an article in the latest issue of Scottish Islands Explorer about a walk to Hairteabhaigh, a remote ghost village on a far corner of South Uist. The journey was a six-mile loop walk from South Glendale that also passed the site of the schoolhouse of Glaic Ruairidh, immortalized...
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Last month I had an extraordinary opportunity to spend a day on Loch Rog to set foot on four of its now uninhabited isles. The boatman picked me up at Bosta beach, at the north tip of Great Bernera—the 'Best Beach' as it's called by the locals. To get to Bosta I had to cross the Bernera Bridge,...
wondering wanderers
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I think the most appropriate first proper catch up post is a sad but celebratory one. In late August, we said goodbye to the fifth member of the Wondering Wanderers team – Bonnie the dog. Bonnie joined our family at a pivotal moment in our story – we collected her as a tiny 12 week...
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I have a few blogs littering the internet covering various periods of my life or telling stories about specific issues. There is one about money and debt, a couple about Home Education, an early self sufficiency blog which in many ways was the forerunner to our WWOOFing adventure and subsequent Rum...
Treshnish Farm
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That tree. We have had the use of the fields at Ensay this year. We have had hoggs and wedder lambs there. Getting them into the fank up on the hill beside the farmhouse requires the attention of ideally 3 people. Farmer and DG gathered the field and brought them down the road,...
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BrownieView from the Sitheans into Calgary Bay Stormy October skies and then a wonderful October sunset Bringing in the HerdwicksNew Blackface tups Henhouse with Caliach Point and Rum in the distance Sunset over Rum Moving the cowsWalter and NyjeSunset over the...
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Hen house Late flowering Tormentil. Brambles Sorting the cast ewes for sale Herdwick stripes Late flowering Centuary Damp Calgary BeachFergus, our new Herdwick tupHe has got such a wonderful face. We bought him in late August from James Rebanks in Cumbria. ...
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Lamb sales start in mid August. Quite a lot of work goes into getting lambs ready for sale. If your lambs are on an island off an island off an island, the amount of effort and work involved is multiplied and inevitably involves boats.... In late August RM asked Farmer if he could...
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Full production in the veg garden Coco in the Black ParkDevil's bit scabious and HeatherThe lochanOn the hill above the lochanPicnic tea on the SitheansHanging out at the Shepherds Hut Low tide, Calgary BayAugust Sunset
