A very quick nip into Latterbarrow, which is always so pretty at this time of year!
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| Ox-eye Daisies at their best... |
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| Good numbers of Common Spotted-orchids and Greater Butterfly-orchids. |
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| Greater Butterflies.... |
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| More Ox-eye Daisies... |
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| Small Skipper. |
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| Northern Brown Argus. |
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| Common Spotted-orchids. |
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| Common Rockrose. |
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| And more Ox-eye Daisies! |
Sadly, the last day. So a quieter day before heading home. A good view of an otter swimming and diving in a lochan, a Cowrie hunt on the beach, a coffee and brownie in Lochmaddy and a couple of Short-eared Owl flypasts....
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| Shell Bay, South Uist. |
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| Living up to it's name. |
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| Cowries. |
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| And of course there were Mountain Pansies. |
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| My favourite bit of bog, beside committee road.... |
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| And more Bog Bean. |
Well I'd forgotten how nice this walk is! As we set off I recalled taking a lot of photos of waves, last time we were here. Not a lot changes there then - although I did try to restrain myself. The highlight was the Otter - swimming in really rough water before hauling out onto the rocks beneath us.
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| There's really quite a strong under-tow here looking at the profile of the beach, the way the waves bounce back and the turbidity of the water at the edge. |
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| Pounding the shore... |
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| Just the best rocks! |
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| Lewisian Gneiss with Igneous dykes. |
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| And the stripes continue along the coast. |
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| Dramatic light and scenery. |
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| Fulmars. |
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| Some nice folded rocks, if you zoom in. |
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| An arch... |
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| And swimming in front of the arch, in a substantial swell; an Otter peering up at us! |
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| Which clambered out... |
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| Before disappearing. |
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| And on the way back - the blow hole. |
Cemeteries often provide a good track to a beach. So we pondered why are cemeteries, so often, on the coast in the Hebrides. The wonderful resource that is the internet, tells us that there are three reasons:
1. It's easier to dig in sandy soils compared to the solid rock or water-laden peat of the interior, and it has good drainage.
2. People settled on the coast used the sea as a means of transport.
3.There were no inland roads.
But I digress...The wall at the cemetery at Ardmichael was indeed splendid - dripping with lichens, mainly Ramalina - probably - siliquosa and Xanthoria parientina and Xanthoria aureola. So a few more photos...
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| A patient hound! |
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| Fabulous fruiting bodies on the Ramalina. |
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| Just love the textures! |
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| Xanthoria parientina is also known as the Common Sunburst Lichen (among other similar names) - very descriptive and apt. |
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| Then I looked at this photo and wonder if it's Xanthoria aureola.....AI says that it is, it certainly looks a bit more foliose than the normal Xanthoria and it is more orange in colour. Its common name is Seaside Sunburst Lichen - nice! |
As we worked our way back up north, we stopped off for a beach walk - Rocky the dog's favourite pastime! Parking at the cemetery allowed easy access to the beach.
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| The splendid lichen-clad wall of the cemetery. |
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| Different wall, different aspect and different lichen flora. |
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| Dripping with lichens - next blog! |
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| An overcast beach. |
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| Whale bone. |
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| And colourful machair - Bird's-foot Trefoil. |
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| Fields. |
Lewisian Gneiss is a Precambrian metamorphic rock that underlies much of the Hebrides and it is the oldest rock found in the UK. Formed by being heated up and pressurised deep within the Earth's crust it has characteristic banded patterns that can vary in colour. I can feel some experimental collagraph prints coming on...when I get time!
