Under the stars

There’s nothing quite like being woken up from a deep sleep at 4 am by a cat who wants to go out. A cursory little ‘meow’ and then she’s up and walking across the pillows with a businesslike stride, and further sleep is pretty unlikely until you go and open the door. Out she trots, tail up and purposeful, with a ‘thanks, don’t wait up’ kind of attitude.

By the time we get up, she’s back indoors (via the catflap) and ready to do it all again, but this time with an anxious parent in attendance and holding a torch. This gives her extra boldness, because she thinks I’m hunting in her pack. Like a Bengal tiger she swaggers along the hedge, stopping to sniff the exact spot where there was once a mouse’s nest, and then she either veers right to drink from the hollow stone – obviously a fountain of youth – or, without a backward glance, nips straight down to a neighbour’s driveway and disappears under the rhododendrons.

After this, the said anxious parent is left marooned in the road, looking at the stars and shining the torch every now and again in growing impatience until it lights on a bobbing little pair of green eyes, showing that Purdey is making her way back in gleeful triumph.

I don’t know what you’re making all the fuss about.  I’m perfectly able to look after myself.

None of this palaver would have happened seven or eight years ago, when we first moved here. In the early mornings, even in the snow, I used to walk down the road as far as the last house with Purdey and Clyde, and most times we were joined by a bouncing little black cat called Salem who belonged to a neighbour. Salem, who was half-cat, half-otter, would tease the patient and mild-mannered Clyde until Clyde sat down and looked at him, at which point Salem would find something interesting on the other side of the road. They all knew the point at which we usually turned around and they all pushed their luck, like rebellious infants. Clyde sometimes took off on a private investigation, during which time he became selectively deaf; Purdey had an inventory of places to check out, and would on no account be rushed; and Salem shot off in all directions like an unguided missile, but somehow we all ended up back home again.

These days the road can be a bit busier, hence my extra vigilance, and I don’t encourage Purdey to think that she can go as far as we used to. As for her early wake-up calls, most mornings she’s content to wait until a more reasonable time, but it seems that a new moon on a starry night casts a spell that she can’t resist. Rain isn’t necessarily a dampener: after a shower has passed, she likes to drink from the little streams that are flowing down the sides of the road.

There’s plenty to see and hear while I’m waiting for Her Royal Highness to finish her walkabout. The red deer rut has started and the stags are roaring – best heard when the wind has dropped and the sound carries across the water. Tawny owls are coming back to bed, yipping and whooing to each other, and occasionally there’s a strange, throaty hissing from a barn owl. A heron might give a sudden, surprised yelp from down on the shore, but most enigmatic of all are the piping birds that you hear at night, but can’t identify. I’ve heard them often, and not just here, and they always bring to mind the Seven Whistlers: six birds that fly at night, perpetually seeking the seventh.

We’ve made a few trips down to Kilmartin Glen just recently to look at the standing stones, and further south, towards Kilmory Oib and Keills in Knapdale.

Nether Largie stones, Kilmartin Glen

Kilmory Oib, with the well and cross-marked stone

Around the abandoned village at Kilmory Oib, the ground was as wet as we’ve ever seen it – a testament to the amount of rain we’ve had – and we noticed that someone has felled a big larch tree that was overhanging one of the roofless bothies. A lot of the surrounding forestry has been cleared, too – these are commercial plantations – and it has changed the landscape, opening it up to the light and the wind. Further along, by the old mill, the leat from Loch Coille Bharr was in full spate, rushing alongside the path and then tumbling headlong down into the gully between tall trees.

At Keills, just before the old chapel, there’s a shallow, sheltered loch that always seems to attract wildfowl and waders. This time it had about 20 or 30 mute swans on it, all upended and feeding, with a few youngsters that were still in darker plumage. Teal preened on the shore, their soft whistles drifting across to us, and two or three greenshank were striding about and probing in the mud. As we drove back, a group of roe deer, mostly females, were hesitating in the trees to the side of the road; one had crossed to the other side and the others were about to follow, their dark eyes wide in the shadows.

Above and below:   Loch na Cille at Keills, Knapdale

It’s round here that we’ve picked sloes in previous years, but this year the bushes are almost bare. Perhaps it’s been a poor year for them, or maybe they’ve been picked already, by birds or humans. Fieldfares are arriving, but it’s the rowan berries that they’ll be after, and there are plenty of those on the trees. Autumn colour so far has been muted – I think we need colder weather – and the leaves are in danger of being stripped off by the wind before they get a chance to turn. The other night, unusually, it was blowing hard under a clear starry sky and a luminous green band was hanging over the sea, surrounded by a more diffuse area of reddish pink. I got a photo, but holding my phone steady against the wind was a challenge. This morning, a brilliant meteor – more like a fireball – flashed over the hill at the back.  I told Purdey about it, but she had other things on her mind.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted – thank you for your patience. I’ve been taking antibiotics after a tick bite, and they always make me feel under the weather. Colin and I are looking forward to getting out on some adventures again soon.   

For more information about places mentioned here, you might like these blog posts:

• Kilmory Oib
• Kilmory Mill
• Nether Largie standing stones
• Keills Chapel