Whaligoe

Whaligoe lies on the northeast coast of Scotland a few miles south of John o' Groats. When the famous  19th century engineer Thomas Telford was asked to survey sites for fishing settlements to which farm tenants evicted by the great landowners could be removed he described the site as a 'terrible spot' for a fishing village - so the local laird promptly developed it. To access the 'harbour' the new residents built 365 steps (some just visible in this picture) down a vertical cliff face to a narrow, wave-swept bay.

The boats were kept on the grassy platform just visible here, and launched by being pulled across the rocks by a series of winches. It was insane yet the people adapted and survived.

Today a few descendants of those hardy souls still live there, some making themselves available to tell visitors the history of the place. On our visit - we had set off for a road trip to the Wick area - the haar came in and ruined the views, and the remaining 330 steps, much to our relief, were out of commission as they were being repaired.

So we wandered along the cliff top enjoying the one thing which was visible, the abundant bird life. Gannets appeared out of the mist....

....guillemots shot low across the sea surface while....

....below us fulmars performed acrobatic feats along the cliff faces.

Making Burnets

The northern marsh orchids on Golspie golf course are now at their peak, with a hundred or more in full flower. This beauty is growing next to the dried-out remains of two of last year's flowers.

The area where they grow isn't mown, one hopes because the club's ground staff are aware that they host this magnificent annual display, though, judging by the two groups of golfers which passed me while I was taking pictures, they aren't noticed by the members.

On a calm and warm day the area where the orchids are growing was buzzing with six-spot burnets on the wing. They're ungainly fliers but their intentions were....

....obvious: several were paired up on orchid flowers making sure of the next generation.

The Tide Line

We must spend hours each week wandering along the tide line, and a fair amount of time too moaning about how little the Moray Firth has recently had to offer in the way of interesting flotsam. This year there's even a dearth of waders, and few gulls, though.... 

....this pair of black headed gulls made a pleasant change from the usual common and herring gulls.

At least at this time of year the waters are warming up so, if an easterly is blowing, we're usually treated to....

....a selection of jelly fish. This year we've found moon jellyfish (above) and blue jellyfish but no lion's mane.

This said, sometimes things are washed up which we'd prefer not to see, particularly when they are usually the object of gentle "Ahhhhs..." So at Littleferry the other day we....

....hurried past this pathetic little corpse, surrounded by the tracks of gulls which had already pecked away the tastiest bits.

A Second Osprey Nest?

We visited the osprey nest in Balblair Woods yesterday in pouring rain, to find one of the parents on the nest. Sadly, even though we approached very carefully and only at a good distance, it saw us and flew off, leaving no sign of the two chicks we saw a fortnight ago. A passer-by we had met as we entered the woods was concerned: he said that the chicks hadn't been seen for a few days.

We left the nest area quickly, and walked further into the woods, where we heard, and then saw, an osprey wheeling above the trees. The more we approached one particular area, the more agitated it became....

....suggesting that there is possibly a second nest there. We didn't want to risk disturbing this one as well so we decided to leave any close search until the ospreys have left for Africa.

Golspie Regatta

Skiff teams from settlements along Scotland's northern coasts gathered in Golspie on Saturday for the town's annual skiff regatta. These four-man seagoing boats are all based on a standard St Ayles Skiff design, inspired by a traditional Fair Isle boat, as laid out in the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association's rules. They can either be bought as a standard kit or self-built by local groups to the SCRA's specifications.

Seven communities took part from as far afield as Cromarty, Nairn, Helmsdale, and Golspie. Classes raced included 60+, 50+, junior, and open.

Skiff 134 in the foreground here is the Beinn a' Bhraggie, one of two boats which Golspie rowing club owns. The races were rowed over a course which started by the town's breakwater, and went a kilometre along the coast before....

....turning to race back. The weather was nigh-on perfect, with sunshine and a light easterly wind.

New, Different, or just Beautiful

To me every walk offers an opportunity to find something new or different or just beautiful, and this is best time of year as so much here is exploding into its short summer life.  So today we walked the lower slopes of Beinn Bhraggie woods, along paths shared with mountain cyclists and giant thistles, some over two metres tall.

This is Britain's tallest thistle species, the marsh thistle.

I remember yellow pimpernels from last year in the same place but not in these numbers and, while....

 ....chickweed wintergreen - also called arctic starflower - is a new discovery this year, they too are out in large numbers.

We increased the number of orchid sites today by one, but with a site with only three of these northern marsh orchids visible. It's along the path at the back of Golspie Tower's houses.

I keep telling myself not to photograph fungi as they give me heartache when I can't identify them. This beauty is, as best I can tell, one of the boletes, possibly the orange birch bolete, growing in solitary splendour near the orchids.

Butterflies have been conspicuous by their absence this year, which isn't surprising as the days remain cool and the night temperatures drop to 8C, so I chased this one across the heather to capture its portrait. This has led to the usual agonies of identification. It's a fritillary, but I think it's a high brown, which are supposed to be unusual. They've been in steep decline since the 70s but this isn't the first we've seen here, so perhaps we are exceptional in having a healthy population.

'Arabian Sands'

I am re-reading, for the nth time, Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands, a book which described the author's travels across the deserts of the Arabian peninsula in the 1940s and 50s, at a time when the only way to do it was by....

....camel and with the help of some of the indigenous people, in his case particularly the Rashid. This is only possible because Thesiger is a fluent Arab speaker with a profound understanding of and sympathy for their way of life, so he dresses and lives and suffers like his companions. The conditions he describes on the crossings of the Empty Quarter are brutal: many of the stages in their journeys would last for ten or more days and would involve reducing their food intake to starvation levels and their water, in temperatures over 40C, to a pint a day while, at the same time, they had to travel across endless drifting sands.

His Bedu companions took these privations in their stride - they knew nothing else - but grieved when their most valuable possession, without which such life was impossible, lay down and died. What I so like about Thesiger's book is that, at no time is he sorry for himself but, rather, is full of admiration for the Bedu.

This is bin Kabina, the young man for whom Thesiger had a particular affection. He hotly denies any romantic attachment. More it was the cheerful support and encouragement he received from the boy - Kabina was sixteen when Thesiger first met him - which helped him survive when, at times, he found the responsibility he felt for his companions almost intolerable. This went beyond any worries about the physical conditions. A Rashid might meet his death at any minute if he met a member of a tribe with whom they had a blood feud. Thesiger himself is arrested during his second crossing of the Empty Quarter by Ibn Saud's officials, and is only released at the entreaty of another great Arabist, Kim Philby.

One of the things I find deeply moving about the book is Thesiger's constant awareness that the culture he is witnessing is reaching an end. At one point, just south of Abu Dhabi, he hears that another Englishman is nearby, a man who is persuading the local sheiks to sign away their rights to any minerals on their land - specifically oil - so Thesiger avoids him. What he envies in the Bedu way of life is its simplicity and rigid code of conduct, and compares it unfavourably with the wealth and possessions which the future holds for them.

This is a book about an adventure of the sort which, sadly, in our interconnected world, would be impossible today.