Hit the North

Tomorrow we're heading for Sutherland for 12 days - via Speyside and Beinn Eighe (weather permitting) to look for the Scottish dragonfly specialities. On Monday we should arrive at Laxford Bridge, where we'll be staying until the following Tuesday.

I strongly suspect that there will be no mobile phone signal here, at least not a good enough data signal to access the Internet, so blog updates will probably have to wait until I get back. In the meantime, here are some Google Streetview shots of Laxford Bridge:

Looking north: the house we're staying in is hidden behind the trees on the left, just over the bridge. The blob in the top right corner is probably one of the notorious Highland midges trying to eat the camera lens!

Looking north-east. The mountains in the distance are Foinaven and Arkle (as in the famous 1960s racehorses, which were named after them).

The north-west coast of Sutherland is very much like Shetland in habitat, and almost completely unwatched most of the time. Just imagine what must be turning up in isolated gardens like this one (at Oldshoremore, where there was a Black-headed Bunting the other day) in the autumn:

I'm sure the horizon doesn't really slope like that, but you get the idea

Or these gardens a few miles down the coast at Achriesgill. The white house in the first picture is where my grandfather was born, by the way:

Looking inland from the same spot (Foinaven again in the distance)

OK, it's in the shadow of the Isle of Lewis (but only just) as far as Yanks are concerned, but eastern vagrants must turn up along this coast. Someone needs to be brave and get up there one October...

P.S. I've enabled comment moderation while I'm away, to thwart the bastard Chinese spammers. Hopefully they might then fuck off altogether.