Tegg's Nose

Time to work up a sweat under the relentless sun, with a walk around Tegg's Nose and beyond.

Elevation profile of the walk

Route of the walk, Tegg's Nose at the very bottom

Rusting machinery

Gill by White Nancy

Old quarrying machinery at Tegg's Nose

View from Tegg's Nose

Munching Horse

Field of Dandelions

Coiled steel cables

Cogs at Tegg's Nose

Library in the Landscape

Ferry back to Oban

Down at the ferry terminal with plenty of time we watched the cloud descend and the winds pick up, ready to blow us back to the mainland. The crossing back was wild, wet and pretty miserable, hard to even see Duart Castle on the way past.

Despite all the weather we'll be back.

Ferry slowly coming in to Craignure

Lighthouse in the wild weather

Loch Spelve

After a rainy Thursday indoors our final day proved to be even wetter. Relentless, pouring rain all day. Rather than mope about the house we decided to pootle around Loch Spelve to see if we could find any more otters. In the process we got the car soaking wet and thoroughly misted up; the windows are so designed that even opening them a crack lets rain in.

We did see an otter though, a big male bringing in a large crab to munch on by the old pier at Croggan. Naturally, it hid behind a big rock and then our slowly reversing the car to try and get a better angle altered him to our presence and he snuck away, never to be seen again.

A big flock of dozens of Eider were moving around the Loch, coming ashore for a while for a bathing session. Some Common Gulls were riding out the rain on some rocks.
Of course, by sundown the rain had poured itself out and it dried up. Typical! At least we got a lovely view of the castle in the still evening air to drink in while packing.

This Peacock was even more fed up with the rain than we were

Otter

Otter

Eiders

Common Gull

Great Northern Diver

Great Northern Diver

Duart Castle in the evening (look, no rain!)

Ulva

The good weather continued so we returned to Ulva Ferry, this time to cross over to Ulva itself. As it turns out we managed to go over at the exact same time as a guided walk. Not wanting to be leap-frogging each other all day we took the less-travelled path. Major mistake. We ended up sweating away under a blazing sun, which was horribly backlighting everything and we ended up going around (and up and down with heavy equipment) in circles. We barely saw anything while we were on the island and ended up seeing very little of it apart from the farms. We'll know which way not to go next time!
We did meet a very nice resident and her flock of garden birds and had a nice cup of tea and slice of cake at the boat house. A black guillemot was within a few metres of the ferry on the way back, I don't know who was more surprised, us or the guillemot.
Back on the main island we finally got a good view of a whimbrel, another first for us.

Male Chaffinch on lichen-festooned branch

Goldfinch

Black sheep of the family (of lots of of other black sheep)

Path around the south of Ulva

Gnarled branches in the woods

Lush moss and spring shoots in the woods

View from Ulva Ferry

View across Loch Na Keal and Eorsa Island

Whimbrel

Whimbrel

A little taster

Mull so far:

Rain, showers, hail, gales, elusive wildlife and there's always a branch or blade of grass in the way, but every now and again it all comes together...

Sea Eagle or White-tailed Eagle or Eagle Of The Sunset Eye

Many more photos on the rest of the blog.