Blue Moon's trip around the UK

…or Shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason, you will see, no doubt
Is to keep the lightning out

But what these unobservant birds
Have not realised is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to catch the crumbs

This excellent piece of poetry is my personal favourite, ranking far above The Eddystone Light, and I have learned something new which is that it was written by Christopher Isherwood, a fact that I am ashamed not to have known but which I am grateful to Jamie for educating me on. He set me right on this in response to my real question which was to identify this chap:

I forgot to mention it on the previous post but it was too bizarre to miss out so here’s the story. We woke up on Colonsay to find him sitting on the lifebelt. We assumed that he would fly off as soon as we opened the hatch but instead he just peered at us and stuck his neck out like this:

He didn’t seem at all bothered when we went and stood next to him in the cockpit, started the engine, let go the mooring and headed off to the Corryvreckan.

It was only when he heard that word that he jumped off. No whirlpools for him.

Jamie (and various members of Tim’s family) informed us that he was in fact a juvenile shag, and further that shags are not the same as common cormorants, so that’s one in the eye for Isherwood. I never liked him much since our English teacher made us read The Ascent of F6 and told us it was brilliant. It’s not, so I’m pleased to find out that he was as bad at bird-spotting as I am. You’ll be telling me the stuff about paper bags only applies to cormorants too, I suppose.

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Here’s another interesting thing I also forgot to mention. Tim’s internetting revealed that the best bit of Jura used to belong to the Riley-Smiths of Tadcaster, the brewing family of my old boss Prosper Riley-Smith. He was a legend from whom I learned a great deal, including how to reply when someone expresses surprise that you have brought a shotgun to a research debrief. “Prosper, that isn’t a gun in that bag is it?”. “Of course it is”, he replied, “what else could it be?”. I knew his family owned a Scottish island, now I know which one.