A look at some of the creatures I have been privileged to see here in the wild west of Scotland.
There is some amazing wildlife to be seen in the wild west of Scotland, and this post shows of some of my favourites so far. Most are from today’s Canna Puffin Cruise including the Minke whale that has already had its own post.
WILDLIFE PHOTOS
I will again display one by one:
I displayed this one as part of my gallery for the Mingary Castle post – it shows four alpacas and two sheep.
I saw this splendid wading bird while out walking in the vicinity of our cottage yesterday.
I also saw these two splendid equines while on a local walk.
These two pictures, one cropped but not edited, and the other edited show a large deer that was near our kitchen window.
Four sea birds flying nearly in parallel
Close focus on the three birds flying closest together.
Four puffins in the sea – the leftmost bird shows the characteristic bright coloured bill.
Two puffins in the sea. The colouring of the birds is very obvious in this picture.
Four guillemots make their presence felt.
Four guillemots, one with wings outspread.
Closer focus on the guillemot with spread wings.
The Minke whale showing itself – the people who run these cruises recognize this as a great photograph (I have emailed them).
Four guillemots
A huge corvid, tentatively identified courtesy of Mastodon as a hooded crow perches on a fence post on Canna.
A pair of ducks of some species or other that like the far north – the one on te left with the elaborate colours and markings is clearly the male.
Two black and white (with a hint of gold) beauties, taken just before leaving Canna.
A post dedicated to a Minke Whale sighting during today’s ‘Canna Puffin Cruise’, where I was doubly lucky: 1) to be on it at all and 2) to manage to get photographs of the whale.
Earlier today I had the good fortune to go on today’s “Canna Puffin Cruise” during the course of which a Minke whale appeared above the waves on a few occasions, and I captured the evidence on camera. What follows is a short series of pictures…
The first, less good picture:
In the front of this shot part of the rump of Minke whale can be seen just above the surface of the water. Nearby two tiny puffins look on. This was somewhere between Mallaig and Canna.Close up extracted from the first picture showing the whale rump and the two puffins looking on.The mid-portion of a Minke whale including the dorsal fin appears above the sea somewhere between Mallaig and the Isle of Canna. Unedited original.A closer crop showing the whale and a cliff in the distance.Edited version of the above pictureA different edit of the same pictureAnother cropAn edited version of the second cropA different edit of the same crop
Another crop
An edited version of the final crop.
An edited version of the final crop.
I will be producing more posts about this day, including a ‘wildlife highlights package’, but just to get things started I have opted to give the Minke whale a post all to itself.
My second post in the series about my holiday in Arisaig, dealing with my birthday itself.
Welcome to post two in my series about this year’s holiday. My birthday this year (the same number birthday that Bilbo Baggins missed due to other events on the day of his arrival by barrel at the shore of the Long Lake) fell on a Sunday. The birthday meal was booked for Mingary Castle (there is also a Mingarry that has a good restaurant, but we were going to Mingary, we where we had eaten last year) at 1PM. Therefore we set off at 11AM.
THE OUTWARD JOURNEY
To get from Arisaig to Mingary Castle we had to go east, south and then west rather further than we had started, since this castle is quite near the western end of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. Along the way we crossed the river Shiel by a stone bridge that I remembered with crystal clarity from an earlier Scottish sojourn. We then had a long run west along the northern shore of Loch Sunart, passing Salen (a place I first saw way back in 1993), Glenborrodale, site of a nature reserve, the Ardnamurchan distillery, and sundry viewpoints. The turn off for Mingary Castle is just east of (i.e before) Kilchoan, and we arrived there in good time, but not ridiculously early.
THE MEAL
It did not take long to identify two courses I wished to eat (a pork terrine starter and slow cooked beef with Yorkshire pudding, carrot, broccoli and triple cooked potatoes) and a suitable beverage to accompany them (Dark Mile, brewed by the local Glenspean brewery). The food was excellent, and the surroundings pleasant (I was one of at least three people that day who had come for a birthday meal). After I had finished I did some walking around outside the castle and got some photographs.
THE JOURNEY HOME
We went home by the same route we had come, which enabled me to get pictures of places I had missed on the way out (I sat in the same seat, the non-driver’s side rear seat, for both journeys, so was facing opposite sides of the road each way). Thus as you will see from the gallery the outbound journey was light on pictures from Loch Moidart, which was on the wrong side of me that way, and heavy on pictures from Loch Sunart, while the homeward journey was the reverse.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
The crossing of the river Shiel on the outbound journey – only the third picture I took because I was on the wrong side for most of the good early scenery.Mingary CastleThese woolly creatures are not the local sheep – I reckon they are alpacas, and as such a long way from their native Andes.Here as well as the possible alpacas there are two ordinary sheep for comparison purposes.The images from the drive back start here.The Bridge of the River Shiel – compare how many pictures there are still to come with how few there were before the first picture of this crossing.A couple of pictures of parts of the Glenfinnan Viaduct.Beasdale is such a minor station that is actually a ‘request stop’ – if you intend to alight there you must notify the conductor.
An account of an epic journey from King’s Lynn in eastern England to Arisaig in the far west of Scotland, 14 hours door to door, with three photo galleries.
This is the first post in what will be a series about my annual holiday around the time of my birthday, which this year is in Arisaig, reachable by travelling to the westernmost railway station in mainland Britain. This post looks back at a long day’s travelling.
THE PLANNING
I was faced when I started looking at travel options with a choice between either leaving King’s Lynn on the 4:49AM train which would see me arrive in Arisaig at 5:28PM or a later train which would see me arrive at 11:30PM if all went well. Given that I was being met at Arisaig by my parents this was not really a choice at all and I duly accepted the necessity of a hyper-early start to the start.
THE DAY 1: KING’S LYNN TO GLASGOW
I left my flat just a tick after 4AM to walk to the station to catch my first train. I was there good and early and able to take a seat without fuss. My first change was at Ely, and although I had the longer interchange to make, using the curved subway from platform two to platform one I was never in danger of missing my next connection to Peterborough. At Peterborough I had a bit of a wait (it was full daylight and very sunny by then so this was no hardship). My train for the long northward haul to Edinburgh arrived more or less bang on time, and I found my seat without difficulty, and it was unoccupied, so I did not even have to get someone to move (there are people who ignore reservation signs and take prebooked seats, and I will make them move if they have taken mine). The train progressed smoothly through the east midlands and north east England to the Border Bridge at Berwick (the best way to enter Scotland) and then on to Edinburgh without any hitches, and I had enough time at the interchange to be waiting at the platform for my next connection. The run to Glasgow was also clear (Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city and Edinburgh, though smaller, is the capital, so services between the two are fast and frequent).
PHOTO GALLERY 1: TO GLASGOW
A goods train passing through Peterborough during my wait there. I have imaged models of locomotives named after football clubs at work but this was my first sight of one in the flesh.The first of 28 pictures showing various containers on this freight train (no container is pictured more than once).Yellow (at least in this country) is the colour of engineering trains.passing the base of a volcanic rock on top of which there are buildings, just after leaving Waverley in the direction of Glasgow.
THE JOURNEY 2: GLASGOW TO FORT WILLIAM
The journey from Glasgow to Arisaig, a run of just over five hours, covers some of the most scenic railway in Britain. Between Glasgow and Fort William there is a splendid section travelling across Rannoch Moor, which features Corrour, seven miles from the nearest road among others. This section would be THE highlight of most routes of which it was part, but places second to the route beyond Fort William in this case.
PHOTO GALLERY 2: GLASGOW TO FORT WILLIAM
Crianlarich is a dividing point – some of the train splits of and goes to Oban while the remainder continues to Mallaig. It is pretty much an impossibility for anyone to to get caught out because the on-train staff are very attentive to such matters.Decoration at Upper Tyndrum
THE JOURNEY 3: FORT WILLIAM TO ARISAIG
Unfortunately this, the most scenic section of the entire day, also saw the worst weather, and rain spattered windows are not the best medium through which to take photographs. However barring a minor delay at Glenfinnan, where we had to wait for the outgoing train from Mallaig before we could continue the run was smooth, and the scenery was still splendid. We arrived more or less on schedule at Arisaig, and I was met by parents for the last short part of the journey to our accommodation. In all, from my door in King’s Lynn to that of the cottage we are staying in took almost precisely 14 hours.
PHOTO GALLERY 3: FROM FORT WILLIAM ONWARDS
The final tranche of photos from this epic day…
rain spattered windows reduce its splendour, but I think my three pictures of the glorious Glenfinnan Viaduct are still pretty good.There is something splendidly paradoxical about a snow plough with solar panels attached.This signboard/ map greets those disembarking at Arisaig, an experience I had not previously had.
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