Thursday, 31 May 2012

May update–things I forgot to mention yesterday

 

The noises:

Cuckoos – lots of them, seem to have been hearing them for weeks and they don’t seem to need trees.

Snipe winnowing.

Oystercatchers.

 

Brief sightings:

Mountain hare on Ben More, Mull

Lesser spotted woodpecker in the woods in Calgary Bay, Mull

Twite on Coll

Basking sharks around the pier on Coll

 

And I had a lovely sunny day cycling around Tiree yesterday.  Lots of starlings and calls of corncrake.  And endless sitings of hares.  No cows cosying up to the Van but the birds love messing about on the roof.  And a wonderful industrial archaeological site at Hynish, the base for the building and servicing of the Skerryvore Lighthouse – 11 miles SW of Tiree – and could see it.  Alan Stevenson was the engineer and he created a flushing/scouring system for the pier to prevent it silting up – very impressive engineering.

 

I’ve also been reading a lot.  Worth mentioning:

Particularly enjoyed John Lancaster’s “Capital” – couldn’t put it down.

John Geddes (whom I met in the Falklands) “Spearhead assault” (about his experiences in the battle of Goose Green

I’ve rediscovered Kate Atkinson and her detective stories

Also read the latest Ian Rankin.

 

Not sure where I’m off to next or when I will next update my blog.

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