Exploring the Inner Hebrides - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

This book records the impressions of a naturalist exploring northwards along the island dotted Minch. It is aimed at the general reader and will be an essential companion for anyone who is intending to take a trip to the Inner Hebrides. Highly illustrated, and with an expert text compiled from information gathered over many years by the author, the account moves along the Minch between mainland Scotland and the chain of the Outer Hebrides. From Islay in the South to Handa in the North, we visit these fascinating islands to view the plants, birds and other wildlife against a background of the complicated geology. Most of the visits were in summer, at the height of the sea-bird nesting season, but the first section refers to the beginning of winter and the arrival of migrant birds from the Arctic. The author’s photographs, including over 100 colour photographs, and her exquisite drawings profusely illustrate this excellent guide. After leaving school at sixteen in 1937 to work in a London office, Mary Gillham escaped into the countryside by joining the Women’s Land Army for the duration of the war. As a post-war student in the University of Wales, she graduated with a ‘first’ in botany and a doctorate in plant ecology before taking up her first lectureship in the University of Exeter. Her love of islands took her to the Antipodes, the Antarctic, Indian Ocean and South Africa, researching the effect of colonial sea-birds, salty winds and mammals (or giant tortoises) grazing on the vegetation, interspersed with university lectureships in New Zealand, Australia and Nigeria. Most of her academic career was based in the Adult Education Department of the University of Cardiff until her retirement in 1988, lecturing and leading field excursions at home and abroad – as far as the Seychelles andWest Indies and including, of course, the full range of Scottish Islands. She was awarded an MBE in 2007 for her work in Nature Conservation.

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