I made more photographs of plants than landscapes during the outing.
Bayard Cutting Landscapes
Landscapes
Right of Way
Cuts made for powerlines are often good places to find butterflies and plants. This one is near Call Hollow Road and Harriman State Park. It has a lot of laurel bushes. Unfortunately, these areas are often used for illegal dumping.
Harriman SP
We typically visit Harriman State Park in New York about twice a year. This trip was in early June, when the mountain laurel was still blooming (laurel in prior post). The sphinx moth was a treat. Nature always offers rewards.
Mt Gulian
We had a lovely historical tour led by a historian at Mount Gulian Historic Site | Hudson Valley | Beacon NY. The flowers are from the garden there. After that, we drove to Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center – NYSDEC. I photographed a wet young red-tailed hawk there.
Goodbye to Skye
Our last day was spent driving from the Isle of Skye. These pictures were taken on our way to Glasgow Airport. This trip was as memorable as our visits to Iceland and Maui. I have photographs made at those places on this site also.
We rented a car from Glasgow Airport for the second part of our trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It is the most convenient and flexible option. The drive to Skye is approximately 210 miles and takes around 5 to 5.5 hours without extended stops.
About halfway through the drive, we stopped at the Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum, Crianlarich, Scotland, which won awards for the best fish and chips. I agree! The cafe is across the street from the Green Welly, a huge and very popular roadside stop.
On the way to Skye, driving out of Glasgow, I kept getting us lost (I am the navigator) because of unfamiliar road signs, etc. On the way back, I did much better. I only had one little difficulty: I could not find the entrance into the lot to return the car. After several circles around it, I asked a policeman.
Fairy Pools 3 of 3
Slightly more detailed views of the Fairy Pools in the Isle of Skye, Scotland. The water really is blue.
Fairy Pools 2 of 3
This was our last day on the Isle of Skye. Most of this set shows the pools in the landscape. I made sure that we arrived at the pools early, around 8 AM, before the main rush of tourists. By midday, there were people everywhere, which is not good for landscape photography. They even went into the pools!
Fairy Pools walk on the Isle of Skye in Scotland – A link to details about hiking at the Fairy Pools and getting there.
Fairy Pools 1 of 3
The introduction to 3 posts:
The Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye, historically known as Coire na Creiche, combine striking natural beauty with deep Gaelic and clan history. Their name reflects a later romanticized association with fairies rather than documented folklore, while their past includes a brutal 1601 clan battle between the MacLeods and MacDonalds. Today, the pools are valued for their vivid waters, dramatic Black Cuillin setting, and growing popularity as a destination where landscape, history, and cultural storytelling meet. See Fairy Pools – Wikipedia.
Glen Brittle (Gleann Breadail in Scottish Gaelic) is a large glen in the south of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. It runs south to north, along the River Brittle, which has its mouth at Loch Brittle (a sea loch). The glen is bounded on the east by the main Black Cuillin ridge, the largest mountain range on Skye. The name is probably derived from old Norse Bred Dal (“broad valley”) with the Gaelic glean (“valley”) prefixed later.
Brittle’s tributaries run into the glen, including a stream with waterfalls known as the Fairy Pools. There are two hamlets in the south of the glen – Glenbrittle and Bualintur. In 2024 a lost 17th- or 18th-century farming settlement known as Brunell was discovered. Once home to over 2000 people, it was abandoned in the 19th century due to the amalgamation of small farms.
In the northern woods and fields, red deer can be seen. Rabbits and swallows are mostly in the farmland in the south. Ruddy turnstones, ringed plovers, grey herons, dunlins, curlews, and oystercatchers can be found on the beach.
There are sheep all over the Isle of Skye. I put a few of them in this post. In the next two posts I will show the pools.
