When the fine
weather began earlier this month, the sea was still very cold resulting in weird
thick rolls of white mist on the Kilbrannan Sound.
The Return of the Sun
After the beastly mini Ice Age that was last
winter, this magnificent May! It’s as we’d been living in a black-and-white
film and suddenly found ourselves shining in brilliant technicolour.
Bright green
bracken stalks are shooting up from last year’s faded fronds. Deep yellow whins
blossom (with their divine coconut fragrance), frothy white hawthorn blossom
and the exotic purple flowers of the rhododendron ponticum adorn Lochranza’s
hillsides. The lush leaves of sycamores hum with bees gathering nectar. Even
the ash, always last, has come into leaf. In shady rocky clefts there are still
velvety violets, bright-eyed primroses, and nodding bluebells.
This settled
sunshine makes climbing high a temptation. From Lochranza’s hills our eyes are
drawn to the rounded Paps of Jura, up Loch Fyne to splashes of white which are
yachts coming out of Portavadie Marina, and across to the Clyde. There are a
lot of daylight hours to play with this month and very little real darkness. It
is the season and weather for wonderful sunsets behind the ancient silhouette
of Lochranza Castle. Nothing is lovelier than being in a Canadian canoe on the
loch on nights like these. Using the silent stroke to glide along, we don’t
make a ripple.
There is a soundtrack
of birdsong from dawn as birds flirt with prospective mates. The cuckoo’s
plaintive two notes calling from behind the Distillery punctuate the day.
Adders slither in the undergrowth of Gleann Easan Biorach. They glare boldly at
us and add a warning hiss to respect their space. The red deer are casting
their shaggy worn-out winter coats and regaining strength on the juicy grass.
Badgers meanwhile are focussing on the housework, tossing out the old straw and
sheep’s wool that kept their setts warm all winter. Last week we passed seals
basking on the rocks in the bay as usual but unusually one took off, leaping
and arching in and out of the water like a dolphin. It looked like a seal but behaved
like a small dolphin. Can seals leap clear of the water is the question we are
left pondering.
Amid so much
loveliness there is inevitably a downside: the midgies made their presence
known on the 23rd and are currently drifting around in a half awake
state. The breeding females have not started biting yet. Without these wee
creatures we wouldn’t have the swallows that raise two or three broods a year
in our sheds, or the bats.
In contrast to
all this change and activity Lochranza’s rocks seem unchanging but then again,
of course they are changing- the whole relevance of Hutton’s Unconformity near
Fairy Dell is that the location made James Hutton realise that landscapes are
in a process of continuous change and that everything in the natural world is more
varied, complex and inter-related than anyone had previously thought.
Arran is an
inspiring island!
Hutton’s
Unconformity. Lochranza Centre staff have devised a geocaching walk in the area
that helps you understand the geological processes that the rocks bear witness
to.
Laggan Cottage,
which you pass on Arran’s Coastal Way, faces the north but basks in the
sunshine for a few brief weeks in summer. This was once a populated area – you
can still see the marks of cultivation of the land on these summer evenings.
