Benderloch Beach

 Another of the trips we made while staying in Oban last week was to Benderloch Beach. It's a lovely pebbly beach 

 

We saw a couple of pairs of Common Sandpipers, who were nesting on this beach (no photos of these birds though, we kept well away from them, not wanting to accidentally step on their nests). It was lovely to see Silverweed growing on the edge of the beach 

The landscape around the beach is also lovely - we heard a cuckoo here for the first (and only) time in our holiday. 

The Lovely Island of Lismore

 One of the days we were staying in Oban we took the ferry across to the lovely Island of Lismore. Luckily the weather stayed fine for the trip and we were able to appreciate the views of the misty coastline

The sunlight broke through the mist to light up this island beach  

The trip over to Lismore took about 45 minutes and there's a nice walk once you get there. You start by walking along the coast (much of this this path is boggy, but the surrounding trees and bushes are full of birds)

The path ends at the island's Gaelic Heritage Centre, which has a nice cafe. We took a detour to view this loch  

where we were delighted to see two Spotted Flycatchers, which are an increasingly rare sight these days (click on the photo below to get a closer view!)

If you're staying in or near Oban and wondering which of the islands are worth a day trip, Lismore is definitely one, as is Kerrera. Mull is worth a longer trip, and there are boat trips which take in several of the smaller islands at the same time. 

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I also wrote about our trip to Oban in today's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack.

 

Glen Nant

On the second day of our holiday in Oban, we travelled to Glen Nant, a beautiful area of upland oak woodland, which also holds other trees including birch, hazel and alder.

 There are streams to cross

and uneven steps to climb

There's a lot of Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant) which I always like to find

and some lovely views 

It's a beautiful place to visit, but some of the the slopes are very steep, so be warned! 

Wildlife in Oban

 We're just back from a lovely (but very rainy) few days on the west coast of Scotland. We stayed in the pretty harbour town of Oban. Over the next few posts, I'll share some of our photos. Today, I'll focus on Oban itself. 

The waters around Oban are famous (for us at least!) for the Black Guillemots that nest in the walls of the promenade

 We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast very close to Dunollie Woods

which are part of the grounds of Dunollie Castle, which you can see in the background of the photo below 

the woodland walk also offers good views across the water 

We saw a Red Squirrel in these woods, but it didn't want to pose for a photo. Unlike this Hooded Crow in the centre of Oban 

A Fish Caught in Time by Samantha Weinberg

 

 This is the story of the scientists who rediscovered the coelacanth. This fish had only been known from the fossil record until 1938 when Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, a young curator at East London Museum, South Africa found what she suspected to be a coelacanth in amongst a catch of fish that she'd been invited to look at in case there was anything there of interest to the museum. 

The book then follows the search to rediscover this unique fish for science. Outwith the scientific world, fishermen had been familiar with the fish, though it wasn't considered a good fish to catch, as it didn't taste good. Once the fish was rediscovered by science, it became much more worthwhile for the fishermen to catch it, as scientists and wealthy collectors suddenly started paying large sums of money for it. 

Although I totally understand the need for scientists to study the fish, throughout reading this book, I felt the risk of overfishing to the current populations of coelacanths. It seems though, that the species' elusive habits, that hid it from science for so long, will continue to protect it.  

This is a fascinating book, giving insights into both the coelacanth itself and the scientific research and rivalries around it. 

A Fish Caught in Time, by Samantha Weinberg, published (1999) by Fourth Estate.  

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The latest post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about my favourite birds, swifts, you can read it here.  

 

 

 

Trees in Spring

As many readers will know, I regularly patrol Edinburgh's Water of Leith river, picking litter and recording wildlife. I've become even more than usual fascinated by the development of fruits on trees. I don't mean the obvious fruits, like cherries or apples (though their development is also fascinating) but specifically beech and larch. 

At the beginning of May, I noticed these lovely little pom-poms on a beech tree

 

Today those pom-poms (on a different beech tree!) look like this:

Meanwhile, the larch cones on 25 March this year looked like this

and today they look like this (same tree, different cones)

(I'm preparing a post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack to show the development of larch cones, which hopefully will be posted in a couple of weeks, though it depends on how quickly the cones develop to full maturity!)
 

Sunshine, Birds and Insects at Musselburgh

 We had a lovely walk at Musselburgh yesterday. We started by walking along the River Esk 

 where we saw a good number of Eider ducks and their tiny ducklings (we counted 17 ducklings in total), though the water doesn't look to be the ideal state for birds to live in

 

We continued along the John Muir Walkway along the Firth of Forth and on to the Lagoons, where there were several Shelducks and not very many other birds (but this is to be expected, winter is the best time to see lots of birds here)

We also saw a few butterflies, including this Common Blue  

and a few Speckled Woods

 There were several damselflies, including this mating pair of Common Blue damselflies, being photo bombed by a second male

 and a Blue Tailed Damselfly 

 and finally a very bright Early Bumblebee