In search of the bird with the longest name

Well, not quite the longest – the red breasted merganser beats it by two letters, but the saw-bill is encountered much more frequently than the Arctic visitor, the red necked phalarope, a summer migrant returning to breed in a very few select locations in the northern and western isles.

Loch na Muilne

 Loch na Muilne – the Loch of the Mill- in the north of the Isle of Lewis is just such a spot and my timing for once was spot on.
 The last week in May is when they return to this wee lochan to breed. Unusually for birds, it is the males who are dowdy and the females who sport the bright colours. The Gaelic name is Deargan-allt which translates appropriately as "a red mark on the stream".

Why they choose this stretch of water from the dozens, scores, possibly hundreds of lochans scattered all over the Lewis moors, is a mystery to me. Maybe the combination of vegetation, marsh and shallows, insect species – the micro-environment - suits them. Every other loch seemed to be taken up by greylags and their offspring. Perhaps their absence was the key to the phalaropes choice.

Greylags protecting their goslings

On my first visit, I was just turning to leave when two came flying in and disappeared into the long grass. Not sure, I returned the next morning with no success but, after a day spent scrambling up Ben Bragar, I returned to catch sight of the pair paddling around the margins of the lochan in their curious circling fashion.

Tormentil

Feeling pleased with myself, I traipsed back under the song of skylarks and the incessant piping of oystercatchers, across the moorland studded with wild flowers – marsh lousewort, milkwort, tormentil, the ever present bog cotton and the Hebridean orchid. pausing to admire the drystone building with massive boulders in the ruined black houses and field walls on the way.

Marsh lousewort

Hebridean orchid

Near Loch na Muilne is the Arnol Black House, the Tigh Dubh that was the dwelling of Hebrideans for centuries and had probably not changed much since Neolithic times.
 Perfectly adapted to the climate of the Western Isles and using the local materials to hand, these houses were initially “improved” which actually made living conditions in them worse, then abandoned all together for modern “white” houses.

The black house with its thick double skinned walls, rounded corners to deflect the gales and replaceable thatched roof, housed the family at one end and their cow at the other. A handy arrangement in the long, cold, dark Hebridean winter.

Arnol Tigh Dubh

Steps were built into the drystone walls allowing access to the roof for repairs, the rain running off the thatch drained through the rubble filled walls, leaving the interior dry and the smoke from the central peat fire kept the thatch dry as it found its way out. Primitive but effective.

Interior with peat fire

An effective gateway for bipeds but not quadrupeds!

People were most likely living in similar houses when they erected Clach an Trushal, the Trushal stone as part of a lost stone circle, 5000 years ago.

Were the rednecked phalaropes flying in to breed on Loch na Muilne then?

P.S.  A special thanks to the people at the cottage near the Trushal stone who found and looked after the camera that the dopey blogger left behind.