The Season of 2005
Another wonderful season spent travelling around the islands
and enjoying the spectacular scenery and the wonderful wildlife.
Once again I would like to offer my thanks to all the guests who joined Julie and I this year on our journeys around the islands. The weather was not as good as we would have liked at times, but it never managed to stop us having a great time and getting to see the sights. The whales were particularly impressive at the start of the year and the flowers were superb. In fact I cannot remember ever having seen such splendid numbers of orchids for at least eight years.
Before the undergrowth got too dense I was able to show lots of people the corncrakes on various islands and in fact got these images on Coll near to the two castles at Loch Breachacha.
But across at Mull, there was an unusual gathering of minke whales at the entrance to Loch na Keil. There was a distinct lack of plankton and thus feeding in the middle Minches and these whales had gathered to take advantage of some shoals of sand eels that had congregated in the Loch.
The younger ones were still very keen to approach the boat and see what we were up to
But around us there was intensive feeding by all the whales as well as lots of harbour porpoise.
Earlier in the year a young sperm whale had come into Loch Snizort near to my house on Skye. It appeared to be snarled up with a heavy cable and was not easily approached by boats, hence I got this image from the top of a cliff and at a range of about half a mile. Although the whale stayed around for some weeks, it eventually died and was found washed up on the west coast of the island.