Stalking The Tidelines

In a magical moment of pure stillness on Skye, Jim finds himself captivated by the poise and elegance of a hunting heron

- Jim Crumley

THE bay was brim-full and blue at slack water, but there was a strange green bar right across the visible wind and rain in the forecast, but for the moment the gods of storm held their breath, and I found the land swathed in profound stillness.

An hour earlier, the edge of the bay was clustered with midges, the last of the summer swine. Now, thanks to the benevolent influence of burgeoning autumn, the air was layered with an energising chill. No other time of year moves so effortlessly between T-shirt warmth and fleece-chill in the time it takes to shower, eat a lasagne, and renew old acquaintance with a pint of Red Cuillin.

Every skerry had its heron, was possessed by its heron. I have never counted, but it always feels as if there are many more herons than skerries hereabouts. Whenever a new arrival drifted down from a small conifer copse on a nearby croft, and on wings held in an unflinching downward curve, and with disproportionately skinny legs dangling optimistically in search of a perch, it was inevitably driven off again at once by the heron in possession of its two square yards of rock. So harsh, so abrasive, was the rebuke from the skerry owner that it left a scar on the agreeable nature of the bay's evening, like a skate blade on clean ice. It seemed excessive.

This mood of stillness in nature is dear to me, a time to sit on a rock and scour the bay, its near and far waters and all its shores, rocky and wooded. Where were the otters, the sea eagles? The Skye township that straggles prettily along the east shore of the bay bears the un-Hebridean name of Waterloo. It is a cul de sac, a single track road to nowhere (just ask Napoleon). Beyond the end of the road, paths of varying degrees of certainty cross bogs and machair and yield to shoreline rock. I have followed them eagerly for years.