Huisinish 6 July 2015 Twelve miles of single-track coastal road passing a Norwegian-built whaling station sets the scene for Huisinish on the west coast of Harris, looking out to the island of Scarp and the Atlantic Ocean. Weather colours the day. Wimbledon basked in the hottest July day ever. But this is Atlantic Coast and we’re prepared for Atlantic weather: cloud, wind and rain. Dreadful summer, the locals say. We don’t expect fine weather, but the effect of bright sun is breathtaking.
The shell-sand beaches of Huisinis gleam cream and white and the sea shades from aquamarine through the subtlest blues and tints of pink that come from who knows where. It’s magic. We stop to marvel long before we reach our destination. Huisinish, Huisinis- Gaelic is fun, and bewildering. Letters cluster in unfamiliar pattern and variant spellings occur on maps and guides. English must have been as unpredictable before Dr Johnson pinned it down in his dictionary. We listen to the pronunciation of ‘machair’ and try it out. Machair those shell-sand ‘sea meadows’ dense with daisies and buttercups and with a richer flora of tall long headed-poppies and yellow violas.
Leaving the beach we head out across the machair where rabbits scurry for cover. The sandy bank is tunnelled with burrows that resemble a row of gun emplacements. Our track used to link Huisinis with the nearest settlement, a cliff-face path looking down upon a brilliant sea. We approach the deserted Crabhadail where lazy beds run down to the sea. Hardly lazy. Imagine the labour involved in building all those ridge and furrows to plant potatoes. Pressure of population meant that cultivation reached up the hillside. Now daisies in the furrows highlight the rows of lazy beds.
Cloud rolls in off the Atlantic, even though the sun shines brightly, and billows about a bowl of the North Harris hills. Beautiful luminous cloud. Sun glosses the sands on the beach, reflecting cloud, and pattern enthralls me.
Leaving the beach we head out across the machair where rabbits scurry for cover. The sandy bank is tunnelled with burrows that resemble a row of gun emplacements. Our track used to link Huisinis with the nearest settlement, a cliff-face path looking down upon a brilliant sea. We approach the deserted Crabhadail where lazy beds run down to the sea. Hardly lazy. Imagine the labour involved in building all those ridge and furrows to plant potatoes. Pressure of population meant that cultivation reached up the hillside. Now daisies in the furrows highlight the rows of lazy beds.
Cloud rolls in off the Atlantic, even though the sun shines brightly, and billows about a bowl of the North Harris hills. Beautiful luminous cloud. Sun glosses the sands on the beach, reflecting cloud, and pattern enthralls me.
We came upon a juvenile wheatear food-begging. Through a sequence of images it looked younger and fluffier, less like itself. The wheatear black ' bandit mask' already shows, and colours of adult plumage are there. A bright-eyed fledgling, fluffed up and downy in the wind. A good image needs a bright eye and light does not always fall where you want it. This lovely creature looks vulnerable but the creatures of solitudes are unused to human contact and it's apparent in their behaviour.
July is the season for juveniles and this pipit looks wide-eyed and new to the world. With the fine breeding plumage of some adults soon to fade it's not the easiest season to identify birds. Families of stonechat were a delight.
July is the season for juveniles and this pipit looks wide-eyed and new to the world. With the fine breeding plumage of some adults soon to fade it's not the easiest season to identify birds. Families of stonechat were a delight.
Huisinis, 3 June 2005
Slow and narrow coastal road via Lord Dunmore’s castle at Ambhinnsuidhe. At Huisinish we walk the fine beach and talk with an elderly woman who tends her enclosed vegetable plot, tells how she fertilises it with seaweed, and is still there at the end of our day when dunlin, turnstone and ring plover forage amongst fronds of seaweed. A rich coastal strand and a good trail through fields and on shore. The morning very wet, terrain rough. A geo where two black guillemot swim, their red legs visible. Fulmar nesting on the cliff.
Afternoon we walk the NE round from Huisinish. To Loch Crabhadail. Golden eagle, being mobbed by gulls-Nigel's call. A rough and muddy track above the cliffs. Varied terrain, over lazy beds, over bog, contouring below hills where a peregrine flies, down onto a sheltered lochan where canoeists put up several loons. Lovely boulder beach. Then along a fine beach with star fish and Lewisian Gneiss in banded blacks and pink granite. In grassy, peat-like bog I find three golden plover. Their greenish, ochrous yellow patterning disappears in grass in the subtlest camouflage. They do not stir so however did I do it? I can see them clearly because I know they are there. Later, Jane finds a large group and we watch them take wing.
A wild night at Tarbert and the boy racers screech about the place. They disperse, with the coming of the cuckoo at dawn.
Please respect copyright.
Images from July 2015
Slow and narrow coastal road via Lord Dunmore’s castle at Ambhinnsuidhe. At Huisinish we walk the fine beach and talk with an elderly woman who tends her enclosed vegetable plot, tells how she fertilises it with seaweed, and is still there at the end of our day when dunlin, turnstone and ring plover forage amongst fronds of seaweed. A rich coastal strand and a good trail through fields and on shore. The morning very wet, terrain rough. A geo where two black guillemot swim, their red legs visible. Fulmar nesting on the cliff.
Afternoon we walk the NE round from Huisinish. To Loch Crabhadail. Golden eagle, being mobbed by gulls-Nigel's call. A rough and muddy track above the cliffs. Varied terrain, over lazy beds, over bog, contouring below hills where a peregrine flies, down onto a sheltered lochan where canoeists put up several loons. Lovely boulder beach. Then along a fine beach with star fish and Lewisian Gneiss in banded blacks and pink granite. In grassy, peat-like bog I find three golden plover. Their greenish, ochrous yellow patterning disappears in grass in the subtlest camouflage. They do not stir so however did I do it? I can see them clearly because I know they are there. Later, Jane finds a large group and we watch them take wing.
A wild night at Tarbert and the boy racers screech about the place. They disperse, with the coming of the cuckoo at dawn.
Please respect copyright.
Images from July 2015
RSS Feed