May Holiday Reports

Peter Southern writes, "Last week was spent in one of the Fascadale cottages. We have had many holidays at Fascadale over the last fifteen years and always thought we had seen all we could - until last week.

"On Monday evening a pod of dolphins swam past, maybe fifteen or twenty, maybe more. I thought my week was complete until Thursday morning when we were lucky enough to have a pod of whales in view, perhaps six in total but that's only a guess. They were with us all day, only 200 meters off shore at times. They were with us again on Saturday but as we had to get on our way home we had little time to sit and watch. This is a distant picture of one of the whales to the right of the yacht.

"All these pictures give an impression of the lovely weather we had last Thursday and Friday. This one is of the sunset over Muck from the cottage, and the first picture looks down from the top of the hill to Achateny."

Derryck Morton was here in same week as Peter but his pictures are of the smaller things. He writes, "I found this germander speedwell at Bourblaige with two colours on one stem. I don't know if this is a common occurrence or not and the internet has not yet proved either way.

"This beadlet anemone was at Swordle beach. It shows pronounced blue iridescence from its 'acrorhagi', the peripheral tentacles it uses for defence against neighbouring anemones. It was under a rock glowing with a blue hue." Derryck suggests it was using ultraviolet light, re-emitting it in the visible spectrum in the same way that highlighter pens appear brighter, but isn't sure. Does anyone know?

Many thanks to Peter and Derryck for pictures and reports.

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