BY HILL AND SHORE
Angus Martin
The calm fortnight before Christmas 2001 produced a number of cetacean sightings. These tend to be rare in winter; I suppose agitated water conceals evidence of the creatures and there are, anyway, fewer observers around. Allister and Agnes Stewart, while walking a forestry track north of Carradale on 11 December, sat to have their ‘piece’ above the shore south of Grianan. While thus occupied, ‘Allister noticed a disturbance in the water, which turned out to be a school of porpoise or dolphin - at least eight, maybe ten. We watched for a while, but when we started down for the shore we lost sight of them and didn’t see them again. It was magic while they were there, for they seemed to be in no great hurry, just playing around’. On the morning of the 13th, about 8.30, John Roney of Tayinloan saw, from the service bus south of Putechan, several dolphins close inshore; and on the 22nd, just before dark, Brian Cook, heading back to Campbeltown from his postal delivery, saw about a dozen 200 yards offshore at Tangy, swimming south. I assume all these sightings relate to the school of Risso’s dolphins resident in Kintyre waters for the past several years.
Agnes Stewart also reports a large flock of wintering PEEWIT, on 24 November 2001, during a walk with Allister through Drum Farm to the sand-dunes south of Westport. The flock - which numbered 100-plus - rose almost directly in front of them just by McFadyens’ quarry.
Since my wife and I escaped any severe after-effects of Hogmanay, on New Year’s Day we decided to have a walk together, a rare occurrence. Our daughters went to their grandparents for the afternoon and Judy and I, along with dog, headed up Ben Gullion. It was a clear, frosty day with superb long-range vistas, so we went to the top to catch the last of the sunlight and have lunch behind some rocks, out of the chilly south-easterly wind. I had been remarking on the total absence of DEER sightings on Ben Gullion these past few years - as many gardeners in town will be aware, there has been a migration of deer to the lower from the upper hill - but was forced to review that opinion as we crossed the back of the hill, for we came upon a scatter of roe deer droppings, so fresh that they were still greasy to the touch. The animal’s scent was still around too, as the dog demonstrated for us with his nose. A couple of nights later, near the top of the forest trail, George McSporran and I spotted, in the beam of our head-torches, a roe deer. So, there are deer on the upper hill, but very few, I’d say, and elusive to boot.
Walking the forest-trail from Crosshill Dam towards Kilkerran Graveyard one night last winter, George and I heard the tinkle of running water on a section of embankment that had been scraped bare during the ditching and track-levelling operations of the previous summer. We tried the water and it tasted good, so the spring became a regular halt for ‘constitutional’ refreshment. One starry night, towards the end of December, I was on the trail with Bella and took a notion to scoop out a catchment-hollow below the spring. Happily, the exposed rock was ideally formed for the purpose and within minutes a well had come into being, which I spontaneously named Tobar Iseabail (Isabella’s Well). A few weeks later, I carried an unattractive and unwanted cup from the house and placed it beside the well for my own and others’ use. I wondered how long it would remain there. On 29 March it disappeared, but, strange to say, one of my companions that night, Dougie Ferguson, accidentally kicked something on the Promenade pavement - it was a green mug, no uglier than the missing cup, which, naturally, it duly replaced, but less conspicuously. On 26 May, discovering that the mug too had gone missing, I gave up.
In the 1930s and ’40s, the customary drinking-vessel at many wells in South Kintyre was half of a coconut-shell, which led to the expression ‘coconut wells’. Kenny Smith, Peninver, recalled a coconut well in the 1940s on the Milk Well Brae at the fourth milestone by Upper Smerby road-end. The ‘well’ - actually the end of a field-drain - has since been piped out of existence and the milestone itself has likewise vanished from sight. There is a spring on Baraskomel farm which, Robert Wilson has told me, was called the Boozers’ Well, from its having been frequented by hung-over Sunday ramblers from town.
‘Tobar Iseabail’ is, of course, Gaelic, but it is a rather bogus name, because Gaelic isn’t my language. It got me thinking, though, about a name - also connected with water - which must, I believe, have been the last authentic Gaelic place-name coined in Kintyre. It is Loch an t-Soluis (pronounced ‘an tolish’) at the head of Lossit Glen, Machrihanish. It translates as ‘Loch of the Light’, on account of its having been formed to generate electricity in the early years of the last century. Very little appears to have been written about this ambitious Estate-run project, which supplied hydro-electricity to Machrihanish village decades before, in 1935, the commodity became publicly available in Campbeltown. In the event of drought, water was diverted from Kylepole Loch to Loch an t-Soluis, whence it was piped to a generator-room at Lossit Home Farm, whose operation was the responsibility of the Estate handyman. Overhead wires then conveyed the power to the hotel, villas and other houses connected to the supply. Col Hector Macneal of Lossit tells me that the facility was abandoned and Machrihanish connected to the public supply some time prior to World War II, owing to frequent bursts in the water-pipe that led from Loch an t-Soluis, requiring a squad of Estate workers to plug each new rupture. All that remains of the scheme are big stop-cocks which may be seen at the Home Farm and in Lossit Glen.
Col Macneal also told me that the village water-supply was formerly piped from Mingary, in the hills at the back of Kilkivan, to a small reservoir near Knockhanty, where it was purified by filtration; but that supply suddenly and mysteriously ‘disappeared’ and the supply of water to the village likewise devolved to the local authority.
The first FROG-spawn of 2002 was noticed on Saturday 2 February by my wife, Judy, and daughters Sarah and Bella, in a pool near Crosshill Reservoir. George McSporran and I examined the pool with our torches on the night of 16 February and found not only more spawn deposited there, but also a frog which poked its head out of the water to study us. Later, in the ditch which runs beside the Knockbay forestry track, close to the well described above, we found more spawn, several frogs - two of which were on the move together and croaking plaintively - and two PALMATE NEWTS, the greatest number of which subsequently counted there was 24.
Courtship and mating among newts usually begins in April; in fact, George and I witnessed the commencement of mating display on the evening of 2 April - a male vibrating its curled-back tail before a larger female. Individual newt eggs, once fertilised, are deposited on the leaves of water plants, which are then folded over by the female, using her hind legs, and stuck with a bodily excrescence. With newt tadpoles, the forelegs appear first, which is the reverse of what happens with frogs and toads. The palmate Triturus helveticus is commoner in Kintyre than the smooth Triturus vulgaris, and is easily distinguished from it in the breeding season, when the hind feet of the male palmate darken in colour and become webbed between the toes, and a tiny filament appears on the end of the tail. Since newts mostly appear in the gloaming (though I’ve seen them in broad daylight) that filament can be hard to spot. The male smooth newt undergoes no such transformations in the breeding season, but develops a handsome crest, which the palmate male lacks, having merely ridges on its back. George, Bella and I ‘discovered’, in May, a deep pool containing newts beside the forestry track that climbs by Glenrea. These too were palmates and we noticed one male with a back leg missing; only a whitish stump remained. There was a lone palmate in a rain-filled rut on the Erradil road over a period of weeks in May and early June. I would appreciate records of breeding newt populations from readers in order to form an idea of the amphibians’ current numerical strength; but I suspect that the population is healthy.
Malcolm Cook, in Limecraigs, tells me that his frogs appeared early in February, but didn’t actually begin spawning until the end of that month. He counted, one night, 57 in his three garden ponds. Ian Brown, Drumlemble, tells me that he feeds his captive tadpoles on lightly boiled dandelion leaves, which they decidedly relish.
On Sunday 18 February, George and I climbed to the top of Ben Gullion from Glenramskill. Passing High Glenramskill Cottage, we found a great mass of frog-spawn in the pool there, and, around its edge, lumps of dried-out spawn and squirts of white bird-excrement. These curiosities were explained to us when the shepherd, Dougie McKendrick, appeared on his quad-bike with a load of hay-bales and his three trusty collies in tow. It was a lovely day in the glen - spring-like sunshine and windless - and we yarned a while with him. He was able to tell us that, about seven years ago, he thought, HERONS began visiting the pool to feed on the frog-spawn.
More next time
No 52 Autumn 2002
Wee Drams E-mails, comments, queries and enlightenment from around the world
Page 2: A History of the Gilchrists...............continued
Page 3: McEwings and McPhails of Kintyre and Ontario
Page 4: Tragedy in Archangel: The Killing of J.A. Watson
Page 5: The Campbeltown Book
Page 6: A MacNeilage Family of Campbeltown
Page 7: By Hill and Shore - Angus Martin
Page 8: 'Arichonan - A Highland Clearance Recorded' - A new book by Heather McFarlane