Swallow at Kilchoman At Kilchoman Farm Distillery they proudly claim the barley for whisky making is grown on the farm. Glossy black hens with scarlet combs strut at the entrance to the distillery and fields of bearded barley mark the fertility of Islay. I like to see the way agriculture harmonises with conservation. Where a burn bisects the barley field its banks are lush with meadow sweet and purple loosestrife, habitat for small birds.
Kilchoman is our base on Islay. We return again and again to Machir Bay and to Saligo Bay, in changing mood and weather. ‘Come in winter,’ says a local man strolling the beach. ‘ It’s wild and wonderful and there’s absolutely no-one.’
Kilchoman is our base on Islay. We return again and again to Machir Bay and to Saligo Bay, in changing mood and weather. ‘Come in winter,’ says a local man strolling the beach. ‘ It’s wild and wonderful and there’s absolutely no-one.’
On the same wild morning we come upon a flock of small waders. We know we have only moments to photograph them because two figures approach from the north. The images are good enough to distinguish turnstone, dunlin and little ringed plover.
Lying in bed at Kilchoman I hear squalls coming in of the Atlantic and the high-pitched call of chough. Out before breakfast, I watch the rising sun dispel the gloom from the cliffs inland, behind our cottage. From somewhere amongst the shadowy clefts in the cliff a peregrine calls. The sun begins to illuminate the cliff-face, but I cannot see the raptor. There are bird feeders, and seeding docks all a-flutter with small birds foraging. I can make out linnet and, I think, twite. There are jackdaw and chough up on the ruins of the church.
There are Commonwealth War Graves in several of the cemeteries about the Inner Hebrides. At Kilchoman, a cemetery commemorates the loss of The Otranto on 6 October 1918, off Machir Bay. The American Monument on the Mull of Oa commemorates the loss of another American troop-ship that same year.
Lying in bed at Kilchoman I hear squalls coming in of the Atlantic and the high-pitched call of chough. Out before breakfast, I watch the rising sun dispel the gloom from the cliffs inland, behind our cottage. From somewhere amongst the shadowy clefts in the cliff a peregrine calls. The sun begins to illuminate the cliff-face, but I cannot see the raptor. There are bird feeders, and seeding docks all a-flutter with small birds foraging. I can make out linnet and, I think, twite. There are jackdaw and chough up on the ruins of the church.
There are Commonwealth War Graves in several of the cemeteries about the Inner Hebrides. At Kilchoman, a cemetery commemorates the loss of The Otranto on 6 October 1918, off Machir Bay. The American Monument on the Mull of Oa commemorates the loss of another American troop-ship that same year.
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