Postcard 15: Otters!

Top: Meeting 'otters' at the Moors Centre, Yorkshire
Middle: Plaque to Gavin Maxwell's Teko (Kyleakin, Skye), beneath a sculpture by Laurence Broderick
Bottom: Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge), lighthouse keeper's cottage & home of Gavin Maxwell

'Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid,
from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path.'

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame (chapter 7)

There is a buzz of excitement in South Wales at present as otters have been seen on Gower (AONB). An otter has also been caught on camera at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire. I am hoping to see one before long! When I was on Skye last summer, I looked and looked. I think I saw a couple, but it was like looking for Nessie: it was hard to be sure. David definitely saw one on the beach.

Dr Gareth Parry from Swansea University was giving a talk about local otters (of Gower and Pembrokeshire) at the Science Café in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea this evening. Unlike the otters in Scotland which can be seen during the day, the 'Welsh' otters tend to move around under cover of darkness. It seems that they may be adopting a 'marine lifestyle'. The Aberglasney otter must prefer the fresh-water oxbow lakes on the River Towy.

Professor P. Brain has posted a blog entry about Dr Dan Forman and the Gower otters. Back in 2005, naturalist, Iolo Williams was asking people to record their otter sightings in the Principality. I am delighted that their numbers seem to be on th increase.

• Gavin Maxwell and Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge)
• The Maxwell Society: Gavin Maxwell
  
• The Tarka Project (North Devon)
• The Henry Williamson Society
• Tarka the Otter's Devon
  
• BBC: The animals of The Wind in the Willows
• BBC: Otter spotting
  
• Otters at Ogmore
  
• Eels at Aberglasney

My thanks to the Weaver of Grass for her comment below, and for reminding me about the Kathleen Raine link.

Postcard 14: MacDonald of the Isles

Top photo: 'King' of Inverlochy Castle
Below: Armadale, seat of the Clan MacDonald on Skye

I have been enjoying Neil Oliver's series of programmes, A History of Scotland, and particularly the episode about my distant ancestor, Alexander MacDonald, Lord of the Isles. The Open University has an excellent website for the programmes. During our holiday on Skye last summer, we visited the Clan Donald Centre, which incorporates the inspiring Museum of the Isles and a modern Library and Study Centre. We made some initial enquiries about a more recent ancestor, Ebenezer MacDonald, and hope to return some time to pursue this line of enquiry.

MacDonald resources

• Museum of the Isles (guide) - lavishly illustrated. It contains a number of poems.
  
• The Lords of the Isles by Raymond C. Paterson
• Glencoe by John Prebble
• The Massacre of Glencoe by John Buchan
• Scottish poets (Times online), including Kathleen Jamie and Sorley MacLean
  

Postcard 13: Swifts over the Parthenon

My archaeologist husband, David, has supplied the podcast (via YouTube) for this postcard from Athens. He writes,

'I was sitting next to the Parthenon in late September and the sky was thick with swirling swifts (or were they swallows? Please let us know!). I pointed the microphone of my digital recorder skywards and here is a snatch of the sound. The pictures, some from Philopappos Hill, were taken in the late afternoon.'

See Robert D. Lamberton and Susan I. Rotroff, Birds of the Athenian Agora (Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book 22; Princeton NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1985) [Google Books] [Oxbow UK] [Oxbow USA].

Caroline continues:

'Menippus calls himself the swallow'
(The Herald in The Birds by Aristophanes)

Here in Britain, the RSPB Birdwatch 30 has been much on our minds this past weekend, so it seemed a good idea to take a different slant on the avian theme. You can see my recent sightings on my 'Birdstack' in the right hand column of this blog. Incidentally, the Little Owl (Athene noctua) was named after the goddess of Athens and wisdom, Athene [aka Athena]. Did you know about the origin of the phrase 'owls to Athens'?

Further reading

• Aristophanes' Birds, a book by Nan Dunbar [Clarendon Press] about The Birds, the comic play by Aristophanes, including a discussion on the different species (e.g. the quasi-bird character of the Hoopoe) in the script.
  
• A Magical Tour of Ancient Greece - a travel diary by Classics student, Ellen Brundige.
• Birds and beasts of the Greek Anthology by Norman Douglas (birds from p.68, beginning with the eagle).
• The British Museum: Birds (2008, ed. Mavis Pilbeam). I spent a Christmas book token on this lovely book. It has a fine illustration of the Common Hoopoe by John White and an excerpt from The Swallow by Charlotte Smith.
  
• What would Hadrian Say? online poem about Athens by David Gill
• Athens: an Art Deco house with an Acropolis view? (Times online)