Jura

Hebridean Princess off Jura

The first port of call for Hebridean Princess's (left) July Cruise of the Inner Hebrides was Jura.

I must confess to knowing little of Jura before visiting it. Perhaps I shouldn’t claim that a single morning, featuring a stroll up the hill behind the largest settlement, Craighouse, and a wander back along the shoreline to our boat landing stage, makes me any kind of expert. However, in that short time, I found enough of interest to persuade me that I would welcome the opportunity to spend more time on this fascinating island.

The name Jura is derived from the old Norse for ‘Deer Island’ and today 5,000 red deer outnumber the inhabitants by around twenty-five to one. The island was home to George Orwell in his last years and can claim to be the birthplace of ‘1984’, though anywhere less resembling Winston Smith’s dystopian environment would be hard to find. Its three mountains, ‘The Paps’, are visible from a great distance, including from other, more low-lying islands in the inner Hebrides.

Standing stone & puffer, Craighouse

Jura was an early centre of the Scottish colonisation of Alba, and the shore of the mainland beyond it came to be known as Argyle (The Gallic Coast). Over the years it was important in disputes between the kings of Norway and Scotland and between various clans and factions in the isles. However the population was sharply reduced in the Clearances and now the local economy relies primarily on whisky, sporting estates and tourism. The ferry from the mainland runs only in summer and during the rest of the year access is only via the neighbouring island of Isla.

Rosy Starling

Our very alert local minibus driver spotted a pair of sea-otters out on a rocky islet; I would certainly have missed them. Sadly they came no closer, but on the way back I was lucky enough to see another celebrated visitor in the shape of a rosy starling. “You don’t just come across a rare bird sitting on a housetop,” I thought. But it seems on Jura you do, and since there are so few people there, I was able to observe it without a crowd of twitchers snapping away beside me.

Speckled Wood

A single red deer looked out of the long grass beside the road, a procession of oystercatchers sauntered by along the seaweed and rocks of the shore, a solitary grey heron maintained its statuesque fishing pose, and on the hill behind the village, I saw my first ever Speckled Wood butterfly (right) ...

Sedge Warbler

... while my first sedge warbler (left) popped up in the reed bed beside the shore.

Unfortunately, we’d sailed past the fabled whirlpool of Corryvreckan during dinner the previous evening, so all I saw of it was a large area of disturbed water visible through the dining room windows.

That’s on my bucket list for next time, along with a visit to the mountainous areas and an opportunity, perhaps, to see some of the local eagles, deer, and seals.

Should anyone be undecided about a visit to Jura, I'd recommend it. And if you're lucky you won't encounter any lesser-spotted former PMs.

Pont de Gau, Camargue

I could happily spend all day in a bird reserve. Since I know myself only too well I took careful measures to be back on time on this occasion, though I needn't have worried because another keen bird photographer was late back to the bus instead of me.

The salt marshes of The Camargue are full of exotic species; wild birds being encouraged to congregate inside the bounds of Pont de Gau by feeding. The Greater Flamingos cluster in garrulous flocks close to the shore of  small lakes, demonstrating by their high stepping strutting that the water is only inches deep and especially convenient for their strange but logical method of sieving the oozy mud below through odd-shaped beaks.

Other species are slightly less gregarious. Greater Egrets seem to have slightly more respect for each other's personal space and roost several feet apart. Yellow-crested Cattle Egrets seem to mix in with their all-white relatives without concern, and even the often solitary grey herons will join the family groups.

It is quite hard to take a bad photograph where large birds are so concentrated. After some time photographing birds on the ground, I decided that take-off and landing presented greater challenges, though my attempts here also caused me to waste many more exposures. It is so easy to have the wrong depth of field and end up with part of a bird out of focus. If it happens to be the head that you have wrong this will ruin the shot, yet the recommended technique of focussing on the bird's eye is remarkably difficult if the bird is moving.

You need good reflexes and a steady hand; I was usually quite pleased just to get the whole bird in the frame. The White Stork on the left obligingly assisted by coming in to touch down in just the right spot.

There are lots of tracks around the lakes of Pont de Gau and it is easy to find yourself on your own, even when there are crowds around the cafe and enclosures. 

For any naturalist in The Camargue, a visit to Pont de Gau should certainly be on the agenda.  Take several lenses, spare batteries and lots of time.  Oh, and if it's a still day, take mosquito repellent!

 

Grey Herons

The Grey Heron (ardea cinerea) is present in small numbers in my part of Sliabh Mannan. I have never seen more than two together. However as consumers of fish and frogs they are reasonably well supplied by the waters of the Culloch Burn and other streams, as well as a number of ponds and areas of semi-permanent standing water.

These upland herons are warier of human contact than those that you may find around town rivers or in shallow areas of larger waterways. This means that they are commonly seen in flight, retracting their long necks into an s-shaped bend and beating their wings in a slow and relaxed rhythm. Their flight is surprisingly graceful for such a tall and gangling bird.

Herons are regarded as predators by the local rook population and correctly so, for they will take small birds if they can. It is less common to see rooks mobbing herons than mobbing buzzards, but I have seen it. I have also seen herons quite happily roosting in trees, a sight which for some reasons seems incongruous, though no-one seems to have told that to the herons.

It was not until a river cruise in central Europe that I was able to take good pictures of herons on the ground. I would need a very long lens to achieve such pictures around Sliabh Mannan. This one was happily standing on one leg and pretending to be a statue.