A few days out

Over the last week or so I've had a few nice days out in the Hebrides, I wasn't at deer but just having a wander and also taking a look for some spawning salmon. For the most part this is just an excuse to post some photos and there isn't much of a theme but...

Lewis has some fantastic stone circles and I like to drop by the visitors centre at Callanish for lunch and then take a look at the stones. On the day the light wasn't great for stone photos but the lunch was fine and it is always interesting to study the circle and think about the people who put it up all those years ago:





The circle overlooks a sea loch that gets a lot of salmon into some of the most famous, and productive, systems in the UK. I snapped this view of the loch from close to the actual circle:



With my interest in salmon, and other stuff, I decided to take a walk down one of the smaller feeder rivers to see if there were any fish spawning. The bottom line is that there weren't any salmon that I saw as the water had dropped back and was rather low but even so it made for a great day out. Although a lot of people don't think the moor looks well in autumn and winter I think the colours can be just as impressive as in the summer:



Way up here on the moor the rivers and burns are small, especially in low water, and while I did see some trout spawning action there were no salmon to be seen. Despite this the nice walk and views more than made up for the lack of fish:



I wandered down to the loch and had lunch on the beach where the river enters the loch:



I wasn't the only angler wandering around looking for fish:



On the way back to my parking spot I noticed an interesting mound on the moor, the bright colours stood out well against the rather less colourful area surrounding it and on examination it appears that a raptor had been a regular user with small mammal bones and the like scattered around the area. I don't know if the raptor just happened to be using the mound or if the extra nutrients have, over time, actually created the mound but it is interesting to observe:



Some of the northern part of Lewis is relatively flat. Actually mostly it is "rolling" and for reasons which appear to defy common sense it always rolls uphill no matter what direction you walk in. However, I took a wee wander up one of the hills on the west coast of the northern part of the island and enjoyed both the walk and the views. It is easy to see some of the many trout lochs with which the island is blessed in this image:



Most of the lochs sit in small depressions and so, even with the advantage of height, most are invisible until you nearly step into them, this area of moor is full of lochs but even with close examination you can only see a few in this photo:



Get a better angle and you start to see the lochs more clearly. You can also see the hills of the Uig area which make for very difficult but spectacular stalking:



It must be said that even when I'm not stalking or fishing it can be fantastic to spend a few autumn days on the moor just having a walk and looking at the sights to be seen.
 
Great photos, good advert for Scottish tourism. Looks like the weather was nice as well.
Kieran
 
My only experiance of Lewis was a blast up to the ligthouse at 'the Butt' whilst on the Honda in a force 8 easterly with steady drizzle, didn't hold much to appreciate that day, your pics make it look a whole lot better. Great feel to it.
Billy
 
What camera were you using?

It is a little Nikon point and shoot but it has some reasonable flexibility and you can take manual control of most of the features, think the model number is something like P330.

I suspect it is a Sony sensor, as that's what Nikon use in everything that I know of, so although it will blow highlights in keeping with all digital cameras if you underexpose by one stop, shoot in RAW, and make everything up by one stop once transferred to the computer then that solves the problem. Well, maybe not every time but it works quite often to overcome the limitations of digital sensors.
 
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