You are welcome to join me on this tenth of a series of articles taking a look back over my shoulder at some sightings that have not only delighted us but startled and surprised us.
To many of our members I am sure sheep are simply farm animals kept in fields, but to anyone who has roamed the hills and islands of the west of Scotland, sheep are creatures that you meet out on the open hills and coasts, often far from farm buildings and obvious fences or walls. In other places, and especially at or soon after lambing, sheep can be seen in enclosures closer to farms. The sheep up here behave more like wild animals and can climb stone walls with ease and squeeze through gaps in fences, apparently driven by a curiosity to discover what grazing they can find.
In 1973, on our very first visit to the Western Isles, we were on Lewis, staying in the town of Stornoway and on the day in question we went for a walk across town and around the grounds of Lews Castle, through its woods, towards more open countryside. We stopped to have a break and eat our lunch, but not the one that had been supplied by our landlady at the B&B where we were staying. Unfortunately her food was not fit for a dog, and I can say this with absolute certainty, because we fed the lunch she had provided to a black Border Collie that had accompanied us from Stornoway to enjoy the walk, and it promptly vomited the food back up.
We walked out of the woodland to the coast, and in front of us there was a small headland. We were scanning the sea for divers (loons) and seals when we noticed a tiny, plaintive sheep voice, bleating piteously and continuously. At first we ignored it as being just part of the background one expects in the vicinity of Scottish hill-farming. But the little voice eventually demanded our attention so we began searching for it using our binos, me using my very first Zeiss Dialyt 10x40Bs. Eventually we spotted the poor creature, a tiny lamb, on a ledge just down from the top of the cliff.
I made my way around to the cliff top and peered over the edge and since I have arms as long as a gibbon’s I thought I could just reach it by lying down on the cliff edge and inching a little bit over it. I was definitely not going to do any heroic cliff-climbing, and thank goodness I was just able to grab hold of its woolly back, and since it was such a tiny creature I could simply lift it up, roll over and place it on the cliff-top path. It immediately ran to the barbed wire fence surrounding a field full of ewes and their lambs, bleating madly and I grabbed it again and hoisted it over the fence and onto the grass at the other side.
Now the most extraordinary thing happened. As soon as the lamb was in the field, the ewes there began leaping into the air and kicking their legs out, just as if they were lambs all over again. It was an amazing sight as the lamb ran to its mother, to see the joy and relief these animals must have been feeling. We have never seen ewes leaping like this again and at the time it brought a lump to my throat. This was our first glimpse of the fact that there is more to sheep than meets the eye, if the only place you see them is placidly grazing in a field, and it leads nicely on to a much more recent incident.
In 2016, again on the Western Isles, but this time on North Uist, we were heading out across the rough moors south of Sidinish looking out for Arctic Skuas and Red-throated Divers. Scanning the ground ahead to plan a route through the bogs and around the lochs, I could see what looked like a good route to follow and I noted there was about half a dozen sheep grazing in the distance. We got side-tracked for time, looking for Lesser Twayblade orchids under some leggy old heather, and when we eventually resumed our trek, a quick look through my SF 10x42s revealed that most of the sheep had moved away, leaving just one on its own. A few minutes later we are getting fairly close to the sheep but it wasn’t moving and it wasn’t even looking around or grazing. By now we were wondering what was going on? When we got to the sheep the reason was obvious. Although the wet ground there could clearly support sheep walking calmly along, as evidenced by the many footprints, our sheep must have jumped off the top of the nearby tussock and landed heavily on the boggy ground and all four of her legs had sunk deeply into the peat and she was trapped. From the look of the pile of sheep poo under her rear quarters she was frightened and had been there for quite some time.
We couldn’t walk away and leave her, so I took off my backpack and jacket and got down in the bog with her. She bleated half-heartedly and I wrapped my arms around her belly just in front of her hind legs and slowly lifted her up and clear of the mud. I really thought she would panic at this point, and begin madly trying to run away from me, a stranger. But no, she stood still and I moved to her front end, and again, with my arms around her chest I lifted her front end up and her front legs came out with a sucking noise from the mud. She immediately tottered forwards and up onto the nearest tussock, but instead of fleeing she turned around and looked at us.
I put on my jacket and backpack and we turned to continue our interrupted roaming. A glance behind showed me the ewe was still watching us, and a few minutes later I could see that she was grazing, a good sign. A quarter of an hour later, looking back using the SFs, I could see she was still in the same place, and still looking in our direction. I would have given much to understand what was going through her mind at that moment. She hadn’t panicked despite being man-handled by a stranger, and hadn’t run away when freed. She seemed to understand we were benign beings and no threat, and she appeared to be interested in us long after we were so far away that a sheep would normally have ignored us. Don’t tell me sheep are only dumb animals!
Lee
To many of our members I am sure sheep are simply farm animals kept in fields, but to anyone who has roamed the hills and islands of the west of Scotland, sheep are creatures that you meet out on the open hills and coasts, often far from farm buildings and obvious fences or walls. In other places, and especially at or soon after lambing, sheep can be seen in enclosures closer to farms. The sheep up here behave more like wild animals and can climb stone walls with ease and squeeze through gaps in fences, apparently driven by a curiosity to discover what grazing they can find.
In 1973, on our very first visit to the Western Isles, we were on Lewis, staying in the town of Stornoway and on the day in question we went for a walk across town and around the grounds of Lews Castle, through its woods, towards more open countryside. We stopped to have a break and eat our lunch, but not the one that had been supplied by our landlady at the B&B where we were staying. Unfortunately her food was not fit for a dog, and I can say this with absolute certainty, because we fed the lunch she had provided to a black Border Collie that had accompanied us from Stornoway to enjoy the walk, and it promptly vomited the food back up.
We walked out of the woodland to the coast, and in front of us there was a small headland. We were scanning the sea for divers (loons) and seals when we noticed a tiny, plaintive sheep voice, bleating piteously and continuously. At first we ignored it as being just part of the background one expects in the vicinity of Scottish hill-farming. But the little voice eventually demanded our attention so we began searching for it using our binos, me using my very first Zeiss Dialyt 10x40Bs. Eventually we spotted the poor creature, a tiny lamb, on a ledge just down from the top of the cliff.
I made my way around to the cliff top and peered over the edge and since I have arms as long as a gibbon’s I thought I could just reach it by lying down on the cliff edge and inching a little bit over it. I was definitely not going to do any heroic cliff-climbing, and thank goodness I was just able to grab hold of its woolly back, and since it was such a tiny creature I could simply lift it up, roll over and place it on the cliff-top path. It immediately ran to the barbed wire fence surrounding a field full of ewes and their lambs, bleating madly and I grabbed it again and hoisted it over the fence and onto the grass at the other side.
Now the most extraordinary thing happened. As soon as the lamb was in the field, the ewes there began leaping into the air and kicking their legs out, just as if they were lambs all over again. It was an amazing sight as the lamb ran to its mother, to see the joy and relief these animals must have been feeling. We have never seen ewes leaping like this again and at the time it brought a lump to my throat. This was our first glimpse of the fact that there is more to sheep than meets the eye, if the only place you see them is placidly grazing in a field, and it leads nicely on to a much more recent incident.
In 2016, again on the Western Isles, but this time on North Uist, we were heading out across the rough moors south of Sidinish looking out for Arctic Skuas and Red-throated Divers. Scanning the ground ahead to plan a route through the bogs and around the lochs, I could see what looked like a good route to follow and I noted there was about half a dozen sheep grazing in the distance. We got side-tracked for time, looking for Lesser Twayblade orchids under some leggy old heather, and when we eventually resumed our trek, a quick look through my SF 10x42s revealed that most of the sheep had moved away, leaving just one on its own. A few minutes later we are getting fairly close to the sheep but it wasn’t moving and it wasn’t even looking around or grazing. By now we were wondering what was going on? When we got to the sheep the reason was obvious. Although the wet ground there could clearly support sheep walking calmly along, as evidenced by the many footprints, our sheep must have jumped off the top of the nearby tussock and landed heavily on the boggy ground and all four of her legs had sunk deeply into the peat and she was trapped. From the look of the pile of sheep poo under her rear quarters she was frightened and had been there for quite some time.
We couldn’t walk away and leave her, so I took off my backpack and jacket and got down in the bog with her. She bleated half-heartedly and I wrapped my arms around her belly just in front of her hind legs and slowly lifted her up and clear of the mud. I really thought she would panic at this point, and begin madly trying to run away from me, a stranger. But no, she stood still and I moved to her front end, and again, with my arms around her chest I lifted her front end up and her front legs came out with a sucking noise from the mud. She immediately tottered forwards and up onto the nearest tussock, but instead of fleeing she turned around and looked at us.
I put on my jacket and backpack and we turned to continue our interrupted roaming. A glance behind showed me the ewe was still watching us, and a few minutes later I could see that she was grazing, a good sign. A quarter of an hour later, looking back using the SFs, I could see she was still in the same place, and still looking in our direction. I would have given much to understand what was going through her mind at that moment. She hadn’t panicked despite being man-handled by a stranger, and hadn’t run away when freed. She seemed to understand we were benign beings and no threat, and she appeared to be interested in us long after we were so far away that a sheep would normally have ignored us. Don’t tell me sheep are only dumb animals!
Lee
