Spring hopes

Despite the biting wind that has a chill factor to freeze the blood, our little strip of coast seems to have maintained its own micro-climate. The forecasts are full of yellow and amber warnings and pictures of blizzards and drifts but we have had nary a flake. The snowdrops, aconites and crocuses are flowering in the lea of the hawthorn hedge, the Christmas rose has been superseded by its Lenten cousin and “Janwar's cauld blast” is past. Are we to escape? There are reports of thunder-snow and, having experienced it (Blog30/11/2010), I am happy for the storms to pass us by.

Hares are congregating in the fields as they start their long mating season. The chasing and “boxing” that they indulge in are, apparently not between rival males but are most likely between jacks and jills as the females test the persistence and stamina of prospective partners!

What triggers the behaviour? How do usually solitary animals know when and where to assemble?

Is it the lengthening day...the earlier sunrise? It surely can't be the temperature that sets their internal clock ticking... not in this freezing wind.

The roe deer are shedding the hodden grey of their winter coats and turning russet. Even the plumage on the garden birds is starting to look brighter. There have been fewer truly wild visitors to the feeders this year....a nuthatch and a couple of long tailed tits.. and then only fleetingly, presumably due to the mild winter. The residents, the tits, the sparrows, the blackies and the robin have had it all to themselves.... including, of course, Geoffrey, the cock pheasant, avoiding the guns like a WWI staff officer, well away from the front.

The surfers at our beach still defy the cold and try to catch a wave. I've tried boogie boarding in the Barbados.. an alliterative experience.. but in the North Sea... in January?

February is here, the month that folk lore says the birds choose their mates. Winter is past no matter what the weather.

And yet....today..bright and sunny... is Candlemas and the old rhyme says -

If Candlemas be dry and bright, winter will have another bite

We shall see

T is for tea and taxes

Looking towards Hawk Ness

The high cliffs along our stretch of coast are a good place to look for peregrines. The inaccessible ledges provide roosting and breeding sites with the rock doves and sea-birds as a continuous food supply.

After a steep climb, you are rewarded with views up and down the coast. The peregrines have been here since before people came to name these places so that the highest point on the cliffs is called Hawk Ness.

I saw no peregrines but watched a lesser black-backed gull harassing a great northern diver. The gull had obviously sussed that the diver couldn't swallow its fishy prey while underwater so was waiting until it surfaced then trying to grab the fish from the diver's bill. The diver responded by diving again and resurfacing somewhere else to gulp down the catch before the gull could paddle over. The gull could see the diver under the waves and was turning to follow its path. An act of piracy worthy of a skua.

Climbing down the grassy slopes, I came across a ruined building that I had always thought was a sheiling built for the salmon fishers netting the fish on their coastal migration, albeit a more elaborate one compared to those further down the coast.

The smugglers' retreat

A new notice informed me that I was wrong. It had been built by a smuggler, one Alexander Robertson who smuggled the then highly taxed, tea into the country presumably landing it on the flat rocky shore line or in the adjacent bay, well out of sight of the coastguards and gaugers. He was so successful that he bought the mortgage of Gunsgreen House, an impressive Adams mansion built in the nearby fishing port by his great rival in the contraband trade, John Nisbet. Gunsgreen is perfectly fitted out for the smuggler with false walls and secret doorways.

Gunsgreen House

  http://gunsgreenhouse.org/the-house/

The tools of the smuggling trade

The waters below the old sheiling now attract surfers and sea-anglers but with a little imagination you can just see the men in their thigh high sea- boots splashing through the shallows or working the winch to bring the cases of tea and the barrels of brandy ashore.

Surfers below the sheiling

No peregrines to be seen to day so a steep haul up to the coastal path then home for a cup of untaxed, VAT-free tea.

Balancing act

The brilliant sunshine of the last few days of the year have been a welcome bonus to the flocks of wimter migrants, the fieldfares and redwings. The wet pasture is a smogasbord of wriggly delicacies to augment the few haws and berries left by the flailing hedgers. Why do the farmers choose the winter months to obliterate the food supplies of so many birds? I suppose they can't do it in spring because of nesting and, in the summer, it is just too much work, too much foliage. There can never be a right time to cut hedges but trimmed hedges are better than none at all.

It's all about the balance between us and our needs and those of the other inhabitants of our planet, the ones that don't have a voice. Difficult to maintain the balance but the responsibility is ours.

As a supporter of the reintroduction of the beaver to Scotland, I am pleased that the five year trial in Knapdale has been judged a success. Far from creating havoc as the doom-mongers predicted, the beavers have improved the natural environment as well as attracting tourists and their money to the area.

http://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk/

The next proposal is the introduction of the lynx, ostensibly to reduce roe deer numbers.

Which would you chase?

 Our own Scottish tiger, the wild cat, is highly endangered, no longer by persecution but by hybridisation with feral cats. Once widespread – there are cat-cleughs and cat-hills and cat-holes all over the country – these famously untameable, even if captive reared, predators are reduced to less than a hundred pure bred specimens.

 http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/

It is all about balance. Do we really need to continue to support subsidised borderline sheep farming when there is no demand for the wool and no profitability in the meat or should we re-balance the land use by “wilding” the rural landscape in favour of eco-tourism, forestry, and responsible access to the remote wild places that help us reconnect with the landscape?

Local fishermen are turning to providing transport for sea anglers and sub-aqua divers as the fish that sustained their forebearers are no longer there to be caught.

Communities can find other sources of revenue. It's all about adaptability.

Bison bred in captivity in Scotland are helping to bring genetic diversity to the herds of Romania, reintroduced there after extinction in the wild in the 1920's and there are calls for the wolf to be brought back to control deer numbers in the Highlands. 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/scottish-bison-to-be-reintroduced-to-wild-1-3391190 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/bring-back-wolves-to-highlands-john-muir-trust-1-3415318 

Now that is controversial. The wolf given the choice between chasing something that can run like Usain Bolt and is armed with a vicious kick and multibladed headgear and a fat wooly creature is likely to pick the latter. Keeping the wolves in the place they are meant to be will be problematic.

A difficult balance to achieve but it can be done.

While wandering about on the moors, I had an old map that showed some of the features and names missing from the latest editions. Crossing the Endless Knowes and passing the Boundary Stone, the names making me feel like I was in a passage from Tolkien, I came upon an ordinary little valley distinguished by the name of Wolf Cleuch.

Wolf Cleuch

The Boundary Stone

The last wolf was killed in Scotland in the 18^th century in Morayshire, how many years, how many centuries has it been since there were wolves at Wolf Cleuch?

Our land is too small with too many people on it for there to be any truly wild places. The wilding  would have to be managed. It would always be a sort of wildlife park. Wolves and lynx, bison and bears and even the wild cat are always going to be maintained in an artificial environment. We cannot go back to the 11^th century.

 If there is to be a move towards the reintroduction of predator species in this crowded island,it would be well to remember the Fool's words in King Lear

"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf”

Still... it is an exciting prospect.

The rising of the sun

The solstice is past. The shortest day has come and gone and we are moving towards the long days of summer. They are far off but at least we are going in the right direction. 

The hellerboris niger, the Christmas rose, is in flower, just in time for Christmas.    Usually, it is weeks early or late but this year it is bang on cue. 

What evolutionary advantage does it give a plant to flower in winter? Far fewer insects about to act as pollinators but then no competition from other flowering species. Hmm? 

Unlike the hellebore, the winter sunrise did not appear ... well, at least, not in this airt.    Early morning found me up on the cliff tops scanning the eastern horizon.   Alas, cloudy skies resulted in a non-event. 

Sunrise

Unlike last year's spectacular burst of light (Blog 22/121/2013), this year was more like an Abstract Expressionist painting, a Rothko in blues and greys. Blocks of seeming emptiness with just a line of light between. I'm sure the shamans would have understood the meaning of it. 

Which is the Abstract Art?

Back in the village, the flashing electric blue and diamond white of the Christmas lights were stridently defying the winter gloom.We make our own sunshine now.

Signs of the times

Our last sat-nav had a lisp..” in thix hundred yards turn left”... “at the next roundabout, take the thecond exthit”. Obviously, it was a glitch somewhere in the circuitry but rather endearing nonetheless. It gave her, for it was a female voice, a personality.

 Our new one has perfect diction and a somewhat school-teacher demeanour, possibly one dealing with a less than able pupil. “In one mile, bear right” followed by a higher pitched, slightly desperate   “ Bear Right!” as if expecting the obtuse driver to have forgotten the original command.

 The voice of the sat-nav like that of the primary teacher of yesteryear, rules our every move.

Maps and signposts are no longer consulted with care. Mileage signs after every junction scarcely merit a passing glance.

We are now so dependent on our on-board electronic guides that these old friends have been forgotten. 

I remember, as a student on the long drive back, enjoying seeing the digits dropping from three to two then counting them down ... 90+ 80+ 70+... as the miles passed and, though my tank emptied, my destination neared. Now, the sat-nav tells me not only how far it is to go but how long, given my current speed, it will take.

They are still there, those old friends, the fingerposts and milestones. Some rusty old RAC signs erected before the standardisation of the 1950's can still be found. 

Milestones now are more used by paediatricians than motorists but in the days of the horse and cart or Shanks's pony they must have lifted the spirits of weary travellers as yet another one was passed en route to a destination.

Going back to Roman roads...”mile” comes from milia passuum, literally, one thousand paces... the Romans erected a stone at each distance, the heirs of these markers can  still be seen in the verges along our minor roads. 

They can be delightfully quirky.

If you were travelling to Kingshouse, you're there!

 Some give the distances down to quarter miles presumably from times when villages and towns had an immutable edge to and from which distances could be measured. An important distinction in the days of Sunday drinking laws when only bona fide travellers i.e. those who had journeyed more than four miles but “not solely for the purpose of drinking” were entitled to alcoholic refreshment. 

The latter restriction was almost impossible to prove

This accounts for the preponderance of Four Mile Inns around Scottish towns and, certainly, it was a valuable source of revenue for country pubs and hotels if not the ideal way of promoting road safety. Those partaking had to sign a ledger confirming their bona fide status.

There is another group of obsolete markers scattered about the countryside. The triangulation points or trig points beloved of hillwalkers. Once used for geodetic surveys, they are no longer needed in these days of satellite navigation but are still collected by ramblers who find Munro bagging too demanding. Many have been adopted and are maintained by local walking groups.

Perhaps local milestones and signposts deserve the same, pointing us, as they do, not just down the road, but back into history.

 O' a' the airts      A finger in every direction

Time and tide

The warm weather has allowed the late painting of the beach hut. Usually it gets done before autumn has set in but, luckily, the weather has been kind to a lazy blog writer.

The beach

The huts are a feature of our beach dating back, at least, to the Victorian era. Technically, they are called “bathing huts”and  may have been first built when sea bathing became fashionable in the 18^th century.

Our wonderful sandy beach has a lesser, shingly companion hidden behind a large knowe or hillock. In Edwardian times,this was known  as “the men's beach”. The enclosing rocks make the waves stronger and the depth allows for diving. The young callants could pit themselves against the sea and each other without upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the matrons and maidens on the main beach who might otherwise catch a glimpse of an unclad male leg.

A few of the huts are possibly a hundred years old, built with seasoned timbers by local shipwrights to withstand all the North Sea and Scottish climate could throw at them.

A safe distance for male bathing!

Old sepia photos exist of large-hatted, billowy -frocked matrons with parasols supervising their offspring on the sands in years before WWI .

Most of the huts are now later editions as is our own one, replacing the original which finally succumbed to the elements many years ago. The sea- and wind- facing frontage soaks up preservative like blotting paper.

The full moon has produced a spring tide – a spring tide in November - nothing to do with the seasons, just a name for the big difference between high and low tides. The sea was far off as I painted the hut door, too far for the surfers who would come back to enjoy the waves as the tide rushed back in.

Surfers

The moon is the Hunter's Moon. Each full moon has its own name. The next will be the Moon before Yule and so the annual cycle continues as it has done for millennia, from before the beach huts, before the people, even before the beach itself existed. The tide surging in and retreating out, obeying the commands of the Moon.

Walk this Way

Last weekend, the warm October weather meant a pleasant stravaig along the last stretch of the West Highland Way from Kinlochleven to Fort William.

Looking back to Kinlochleven

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kinlochleven/kinlochleven/

Half of our party intended to climb Carn Mor Dearag and thence along the ridge to Ben Nevis but, after my last ascent of the big ben (Blog 1st July 2014), I opted for the gentler lower walk.

 A zig-zag climb to about 800 ft above sea-level, then an undulating path of approximately 14 miles into Fort William made for a pleasant day out.

The Pap of Glencoe in the distance

The Way followed the old Military road along the glen of Allt Natrach ( the stream of the adders?) and passed the lonely ruin of Tigh na Sleubhaich (the house of the mountain man ?) before it crossed The Lairig Mor, the big pass, the old path to Callart.  Looming above were the stony slopes of Stob Ban

Stob Ban

There was a information board about the Battle of Inverlochy where in 1645, during the religious civil wars that so beset Scotland, the Royalist Macdonalds slaughtered the Covenanter Campbells.

The next day, I stopped to get some pictures in Glencoe where, in 1692, the infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells took place. Our history is strewn with such enmities and feuds.

Gearr Aonach and the way to the Hidden Valley in Glencoe

The path climbed slightly around the edge of Mullach nan Correan and Ben Nevis came into view, with its customary chaplet of mist. There are few days in the year when the summit is clear.

We passed the vitrified fort of Dun Deardail. An Iron Age construction, that has been subjected to such heat that the stones have melted and become glass-like. The rationale for this isn't understood as the stones are brittle and less strong afterwards, nor is it possible to produce the sustained high temperatures required by mere burning as might have occurred in a battle. A mystery. It may have been some ritual to cleanse or sanctify the structure or to imbue it with supernatural powers.

Vitrified stone

After this, the Way descends into Glen Nevis and then by road into Fort William and draught Guinness.

 http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/fortwilliam/fortwilliam/