Birding in the Outer Hebrides - "it's not exactly a psychological compulsion, but it's not that far off"

 

Richly-textured - Bruce Kendrick's absorbing new book

A FEW days after he had give a talk to a ladies' group on the Hebridean island of Lewis, there was a surprise for birder Tony Marr.

Written in block capitals on the reverse of a note of thanks, was a message  assuring him that his hosts would pray for his soul for "having taken the name of the Lord in  vain".

How come? Apparently,  this was in reference to an aside he had made about the storm petrel being so named because, in its feeding habits, the species appears to imitate  St Peter after Jesus commanded him to come to him by walking on water.

This anecdote is recalled by Bruce Kendrick in his fascinating new book, Art and Nature in The Outer Hebrides, the contents of which are explained by the title.

On the arts (and crafts) side, there are interviews with the likes of painter Rhod Evans, poet Pauline Prior-Pitt, ceramic artist Kirsty O'Connor and fisherman-photographer Lewis MacKenzie.

Writes the author (somewhat pretentiously, it has to be said): "When we gaze at a painting or listen to music, we can understand ourselves better.

"I read somewhere that art in all its manifestations - music, painting, sculpture and literature - can be considered the repository for a society's collective memory. Makes sense to me."

On the nature side, the emphasis is on birds, with plentiful text and photographic information about such species as St Kilda wren, red-necked phalarope, fulmar, red-throated diver, puffin and more.

For those of his readers lucky enough to be birders, it is the interviews with the aforementioned Tony Marr, previously of Norfolk, and Bruce Chapman that are particularly captivating.

They read like a refreshing blast of air - cold in off the Atlantic!

Bruce Chapman, a regular contributor to the website, Rare Bird Alert, spent many years patch birding in inland Somerset but moved with wife Kathy to Barra because he wanted "a little more excitement" and this remote and picturesque island offered him "a broader canvas on which to work".

Kendrick quotes him  as saying:  "After 20 years flogging, my old patch had become a bit predictable. 

"I knew if I carried on I'd still find rarities, but I had a pretty good idea which species they would be and where and when they would occur. 

"Where's the fun in that? I felt I was somehow selling myself short.

"I never know what the day will bring, and the feeling there might be something truly incredible around the next corner is always there.

"I can take my birding to the next level, and I feel more driven by it than ever before.

"It's not exactly a psychological compulsion, but it's not that far off."

The relocation to this hotspot certainly paid dividends because it is on Barra that he has managed to track down such specialities as  Pechora pipit and night herons - both at a litter-strewn  ditch near the football pitch in Castlebay - plus,  on September 7, 2017, an American redstart, the sixth record in Britain and the first for 32 years.

But the real icing on the cake was surely his discovery, in November 2020, of  a ruby-crowned kinglet - the first for Britain. 

Art and Nature in The Outer Hebrides is published at £18.99 by go-ahead Caithness-based firm Whittles Publishing. (www.whittlespublishing.com)