Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

A Crow Dictionary Feannag –  black asterisk of the sky,   fitheach  – a quartz-glinting raven’s eye, starrag  – the hoodie prowling the shore, cathag  – the sea-eyed jackdaw,   cnàmhach  – blood-billed chough of the machair, pioghaid  – chuckling, piebald joker, ròcas  – the belfry’s raucous rook, garagg  – what the carrion bird took, sgreuchan-coille  – my own oak-guide jay, we look to each to show us the way.   In their very names the Scottish hills call out the dwelling place of birds. A toponymical survey of most Scottish mountain ranges or lochs reveals the legacy of Scotland’s familiar montane birds. Around Loch Lomond and its parent hill we have: Meall an t-Seabhaig (mound of the peregrine), Creag na h Iolaire (rock of the eagle), the high stony Ptarmigan Ridge on Ben Lomond, or Coire na Baintighearna (corrie of the mountain linnets). By far the most common toponym is for crags and hills named after the ubiquitous mo...

‘Rathlin: Nature and Folklore’  is on sale now for £9.99 at bookshops, on  Amazon  or direct from the publisher at  www.stonecountry.co.uk     Open publication  - Free  publishing  -  More history IRISH AUTHOR CHARTS 50 YEAR LOVE AFFAIR WITH ISLAND A FIFTY year love affair may feature in many tales, but a well known Northern Irish ecologist and writer is putting the island of Rathlin at the heart of his affections in a newly published book charting five decades of visits to its shores. Philip Watson is a naturalist who has worked on several continents, but it is the lure of life on Rathlin island, just off the north Antrim shoreline, that has called him to explore the island’s mythical history, sealife, birds and wondrous natural terrain in ‘Rathlin: Nature and Folklore’. Since his first glimpse in 1960 of her white chalk cliffs and dark basalts glinting in the sun, the 16 year old birdwatcher studying golden eagles on the main...