My Blog - Jeff Clarke

Uist

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All images unless otherwise stated © Jeff Clarke 2012

In recent weeks I've been fortunate enough to visit some scenically spectacular places. None more so than the Islands of North and South Uist, Benbecula and Berneray. I spent a week there co-leading an FSC Holiday with my old friend Martyn Jamieson. We had a lovely group of 11 people with us and enjoyed showing them everything from leaping Common Dolphins to 'krecking' Corncrakes, rare bumblebees, orchid filled coastal grasslands.

What follows is not a poem but just few of the observations made in the bewitching Western Isles.

Ice crystals strewn across a vast wind-ripped sky,
silver dappled wavelets lapping on the pristine shore
The 'Heather-bleater' drums his rhythmic thrum as the sea-pie explodes in protest at the unseen intruder.
Lochans spill, like beadlets of water on an Otters pelt, across the peaty mires.
Endless shores arc away seeking a golden ratio, an obedient servant to the 'Rule of Thirds'
Peewits tumble across the gold spangled Machair
A ghostly grey spectre quarters with eyes sharp to the unwary movement
The distant keening calls of a thousand wading birds mark his passage
And there, out across the shimmering sea, float the peaks of St Kilda.