Loch 7ian Ceall 



Hebrides are known) to Christianity, she had with her 

 an oyster catcher in each pocket, and on her arrival turned 

 them loose. 



Where the rocks are lying piled one upon another, the 

 shelduck has her nest, so hidden away that only the expert 

 may locate it, and on the boggy hillsides, a few hundred 

 feet above the loch, many curlew have their homes. 



In these days of May, when the south wind blows 

 gently, and when the air is once more warm, it is good 

 to visit the loch, for now a new bird note falls pleasantly 

 on the ear — the cry of the whimbrel or lesser curlew. It 

 is only on the journey to their northern nesting grounds 

 that the birds linger at the banks of the loch. By the 

 end of May the last of them has passed on. 



With the coming of the fine weather the tribe of the 

 herring enter the loch, and following them as their lawful 

 victims there enter also many bird people, so that the waters 

 are animated and cheerful. On many evenings of June 

 I have sailed into Loch nan Ceall from the Atlantic, and 

 these visits will linger long in the memory. The sun sets 

 late among these western islands and after nine o'clock 

 (G.M.T.) of an evening still shines soft and rosy on the 

 unrufifled waters, for by now the last of the breeze has died 

 away and the loch is entirely quiet. 



As one slowly makes one's way up to the anchorage 

 at the head of the loch, puffins and guillemots cross one's 

 path, and circling high overhead on untiring wings solan 

 geese scan the still water for fish. On Ben More the 

 setting sun throws its rays, lighting up those green corries 

 and dark rocks on which the winter snowbeds still linger. 

 These were days when the weather for weeks at a time 

 was of the best, when day succeeded day on the loch and 

 always the sun shone brilliantly, when the land wind blew 

 strong from the east of a morning but veered westward 

 with the turn of the day, so that the sea breeze ruffled the 

 loch's surface of an afternoon. 



119 



