Skye and Mull-2016

„Fly bloody eagle“

My second trip leads me to the Islas Hébridas Interiores, excellently guided by Marc Graf. The Isle of Skye, with all its known highlights such as the Old man of Storr pinnacles and the Fairy Pools, the lighthouse of Neist-Point or the colourful capital of Portree surprises with its great diversity. Mull offers tranquility and equally impressive views worth photographing. The single road on Mull alone is worth seeing, speckled with small pull-over spots and travelled by obliging Scottish drivers. In the south of Mull you can cross over to the old monastery island of Iona to really feel the centuries-old culture, given that the monastery dates back to 563 AD. I am surprised by the white sandy beaches, the beautiful sea on the hilly coast of Mull and the sunburn on my forehead– since I only carry bug spray and no sunscreen. I do have to pass on a word of warning regarding the insidious midges, tiny flies that have a hell of a bite belonging to the family of Ceratopogonidae. They can quite literally become “a real pain” very quickly and incidentally led to my falling into the water when Marc and I tried to escape their wrath. Fleeing the biting midges, I slip on the wet stone and land in the stream– backpack, equipment and all. Thanks to the heated seats in the bus on the way back nothing worse became of it. Very cute, on the other hand, are the puffins. Our small group is allowed to visit them exclusively, and we access their island by boat in the evening. I’m very lucky here with my choice of place on the cliffs, because a funny puffin keeps bringing me sand lances and due to the closeness I can’t even change my lens since my backpack is too far away. This goes on until I finally realize that I’m sitting on the cute bird’s breeding hole. I lifted my butt only a bit and the little one immediately scurried down to the brood–sand lances and all.

My favorite story of the trip is when we booked an eagle tour by boat in Portree. Our rustic local captain knows an eagle’s nest in the steep rock face and throws fish into the sea so that the eagles can hover photogenicly down to us from the cliffs. Unfortunately only the seagulls feel called to and eat almost everything, whereupon after some time and wasted effort our captain slowly loses patience and finally calls up the legendary words “fly bloody eagle” in unmistakably Scottish dialect.