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| Little Bernera |
Recent TV
programme “ Islands on the Edge” featuring the Hebrides
has boosted tourism to the aforesaid
isles. The problem is that the
impression created by the expertise of the camera men is one of instant visual
gratification with wildlife cavorting about and generally doing turns for the
benefit of the visitors. In real life it
is hardly ever thus. You can spend hours
trekking over moorland or bouncing about in an inflatable while scanning the empty horizon for the
merest glimpse of an eagle or a whale without any return except sunburn and
eyestrain. Even if you do find a
rarity, unless you are equipped with, which also means weighed down by, the best
photographic gear, your chances of capturing it on film are about as good as
winning the lottery. In fact the whole
business is just that…a lottery.
This year was a bit different. A trip to Little Bernera, a long deserted
islet on the west coast of Lewis yielded some great results. Basking sharks, thirty foot long, circling the launch, their great mouths
gaping just below the surface, dolphins, minke whales, puffins,a
spectacular diving display by the gannets and Arctic terns fishing for sand eels like children bobbing for apples, all made for a great day out. |
| Basking Shark below surface |
The basking
sharks seemed uninterested in the boat unlike dolphins or seals that will come
and investigate, the leviathans just
circle round and round sieving the waters for plankton apparently
oblivious to all else.
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| Basking Shark fin alongside |
The
dolphins must have numbered at least thirty as the received wisdom is that for
ever one fin seen at any time there are two more unseen. The skipper remarked that they were the first
pod in that area this year, following the fish shoals around the coast. So fast moving were they and so intent on
fishing that, despite them being all
around us, they would appear and be gone
“ e’er you could point the place”.
A couple of
minke surfaced briefly but soon headed
out to sea. They have reason to
avoid humans while the Norwegians and
Icelanders continue hunt them.
My attempts
to capture any images made me appreciate even more the visual impact of
wildlife programmes and the skill and patience of the crews that make them.
Altogether
a great day and so what if my sun hat kept blowing away and the old bonce was a
bit red the next day, it was a small price to pay.
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| Homeward bound |
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| Beehive dwellings |
The return
trip took us past a tiny islet – Eilean Fir Chrothair – where beehive
structures could be clearly seen. An
anchorite dwelling, one among the dozens dotted around these wild coasts,
erected by Celtic missionaries in the so called dark ages, some have given
their name to the chapels where they preached
- Saint Cowstan, St Donnan, St Aula –
others are merely recalled as Pabbay
– “father/ priest”. Perhaps the latter group were hermits having less contact
with the local populace.
One, where we picnicked on the west coast of Lewis, rejoiced to the splendid title of Teampull na Cro Naomh, the Church of the
Holy Blood
It is in a
ruinous state, like most of these remnants of the coming of Christianity from Ireland and Iona
displacing the pagan Celtic and Norse gods just as they had previously
displaced the unknown gods of the Bronze Age peoples who, in their time, usurped the rites of
their Neolithic predecessors. Only the
stones remain.
Have the
basking sharks been returning year upon year to feed on the plankton surge
since the time of the Callanish stones, showing as much interest in the changes
to human activities as they did today?
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|
Teampull na Cro Naomh |
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| Steinaclete Standing Stones |
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