Elfin

The dwarf woodlands on the ancient jumbled rockfalls below Creag na Bruaich on Raasay are a place where one constantly expects to see a wood elf. This one was intently watching a member of our party from behind a mossy boulder.

The walk from the ruins of Brochel Castle south to the clearance village of Screapadal and the hazel woods below the towering cliffs was a special experience, albeit tinged with sadness for the lives that were ruined by a heartless landowner in the mid 19th century.

I have never had so many sightings of eagles in a day, both golden and white-tailed. If we needed any confirmation of the presence of both species, the sight of a smaller golden eagle stooping on a passing white-tailed eagle was a text book demonstration of the difference in scale and profile of the two great birds. The number of sightings owed much to the eagle-eyes of Alison who saw them long before they became visible to my unassisted eyes (and also spotted this little vision when I was botanically distracted).

As for the mossy woods, they were something one sees so rarely in our islands. Small trees dripping with mosses and encrusted with lichens, moss covered boulders, filmy ferns on vertical rock faces, small rowan trees growing out of rocks, and primroses studding the ground. Pure magic.

On the shore and exposed in some of the fallen boulders were the fossils of ammonites and huge scallop-like shells.

This is a place to return to, as is Raasay itself.