Business as usual: another rant.

Be prepared for something very unusual from me: a topical blog post.

Alright, I may be stretching the definition of the word topical a little far. The word topical usually implies that a subject is of great interest in the current climate, that office workers are discussing it fervently over coffee breaks, and that inches of column space are being devoted to it.

In reality, just one article recent has been published on the subject and probably only because it is a slow news day. This is the news that the fabled Appalachian trail may be extended.

The Appalachian trail, or AT to its friends, holds a special place in the hearts of hikers worldwide. It is one of the world's oldest long distance trails, and what a trail it is. At 2,178 miles it stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia up the eastern seaboard of the United States to Mount Katahdin in Maine.

It may no longer be the longest trail in the world or even the United States, but it is the grand daddy of all those that have followed it. Even the Pennine Way - which Joe I will be walking next month in preparation for The Great Walk West: a walk that includes a part of the AT - was directly inspired by the Appalachian Trail.

Those who have completed its full length are known affectionately as thru-hikers and some of their number are truly legendary. Emma "Grandma" Gatewood was the first woman to complete the trail, despite being a grandmother of 23. Her famous wit and inappropriate gear leaves made her an instant AT celebrity. A status which was only heightened when she repeated the feat a futher two times. Britons though will be more familiar with Bill Bryson and his famous failure to complete the AT.

Each year more thru-hikers complete the trail than the America's two other long distance trails, the Pacific Crest Trail and American Discovery Trail, combined. Why then is it so popular? Partly it is the history and the stories of past thru-hikers. Partly it is the legendary companionship between hikers, who tend to bump into each other every day for months on end, and the charity of those who live around the trail: so called trail magic. Partly it is because the AT is so achievable to anyone who has six to eight months to spare.

It is against this background that a growing number of people are calling for the trail to be extended. The Appalachian mountains do not finish at the trail's northern terminus but continue through Quebec into Newfoundland. A group is currently blazing a trail known as The International Appalachian Tail into Newfoundland and hope for it to become part of the AT proper.

For some reason, I find myself hating this idea. I have only stepped momentarily on the AT and will only be walking a few hundred miles of it next year, but I already feel an affinity to the trail. The true stretch from Georgia to Maine has a rich history and prestige that the no extension will ever match.

I am not against new walking trails, far from it, just the pointless association of new trails with the established and well loved AT brand. Especially if it belittles the achievements of those who have already walked the trail and makes the walk less attainable to future hikers.

The Appalachian Trail may not be enough to satisfy the whims of nutters such as Joe and myself, but that does not mean it should be extended to accommodate the moronic few. Give these people deserve a new badge that includes but does not replace the badge of the AT thru-hiker.

As for plans to extend the trail through Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, Scotland, France, Spain, the Atlas mountains and any other peaks can claim some sort of geological affinity to the Appalachians, no comment. I just wonder who will be so bold as to suggest that the Appalachain Mountain's Antarctic cousins be included?

British Seabird Islands: Bass Rock

Well it has been a short while since I last blogged. It is not a great excuse but I have been working on my dissertation project - a photo book for the Scottish project and university dissertation - and am just a little sick of writing.

Anyway, I thought I would do a three articles comparing of the seabird islands I have visited this year: Skomer, Inner Farne, and Bass Rock. There are of course other seabird islands in the British Isles, but I have not had the pleasure of visiting them.

Firstly, Bass Rock. Bass Rock is a 300 million year old volcanic plug in the middle of the Firth of Forth. As every geography student knows, volcanic plugs are produced when the lava tubes of extinct volcanoes solidify and the surrounding rock is eroded away. The textbook example of this is Castle Rock in Edinburgh, and Bass Rock was produced by a related volcanic eruption.

From afar, the surface of Bass Rock appears white. This is a combination of a coating of guano and a smothering of Gannets. Over 150,000 Gannets crowd onto Bass Rock, making it the largest rock Gannetry in the world. Gannets and Bass Rock are so inextricably linked that Linnaeus, the grand old father of Taxonomy, gave Gannets the latin name Morus bassanus in reference to the rock.

A trip to Bass Rock starts in the town of Dunbar: the only town in the UK where Kittiwakes outnumber humans. This may not be true as I have no idea how many inhabitants live in Dunbar, what its Kittiwake population is, or the Kittiwake to human ratio of any other British towns. Still, it is a good guess. Regardless you can get within feet of Kittiwakes and their chicks without causing any disturbance.

The boat ride takes around 45 minutes to an hour and can get very choppy. Take waterproofs and, no matter how calm the sea looks, put them on: a lesson I learned the hard way. On either the boat trip to the island or the boat trip back, the captain will throw bucketfuls of dead fish over the side: a process known as chumming. This attracts hungry seabirds from miles around.

Fortunately for the Gannets - but unfortunately for photographers - Bass Rock's Gannets have been getting plenty of food this year so are less inclined to follow the boat in search of scraps than normal. On my trip chumming was largely dominated by Herring Gulls, but a few Gannets did show their faces and give us a diving show.

On the island itself, access is very limited. There are after all Gannets everywhere. A roughly 150m long Gannet free path winds its way up part of the island and leaving it is strictly forbidden. This should not worry you though. There are gannets within inches of the path for the majority of the path's length. The main problem is not finding or getting close to Gannets but trying to get compose a simple shot without countless other gannets in the background.

Having said that, there are plenty of different types of shot on offer. If you are low and slow, Gannets treat you as a Gannet with a territory and will respect you so long as you respect their space. In this way, you can get within two feet of a Gannet and get some wide-angle environmental shots.

One piece of behaviour to look out for is the paid bonding display. Whenever one Gannet from a pair returns to the nest, the two will great each other by knocking their beaks together. They repeat this as a reassurance to each other whenever there is a bit of argy-bargy within the colony. This can be set of by anything or nothing as Gannets shuffle their weight and feathers fly past in the wind.

Lastly, there are of course the flight shots. Gannets land pretty much randomly throughout the colony. However, they do tend to fly in against the wind. Once you know where the Gannets are coming from the odds are stacked in your favour.

By far the easiest way to photograph the Gannets in flight is to find somewhere where they are hanging in the wind. If the wind is right, Gannets angle themselves into the wind and become virtually stationary targets. The best place to find Gannets doing this on Bass Rock is down by the landing jetty.

In summary, Bass Rock is an amazing place and definitely worth a visit. I would be perfectly happy to spend a few hours on the island with our without my camera just watching the Gannets go about their daily lives. Photography on Bass Rock is certainly not easy and finding the right compositions can be a bit of a nightmare, but there are plenty of opportunities to keep any wildlife photography happy.

A walk on the Moors

This time yesterday, I was primed and ready to publish a post praising the British railway system, explaining how I shall miss it next year. One misdirected train, two taxis, thirty seven pounds, and a fair few hours later, I am not quite so keep to press the publish button. Instead, I have written a piece about a walk I took today in the Yorkshire Moors, no thanks to a certain York station announcer.

Before I launch into the post proper, I must explain that I am not a Nazi. Before you navigate away from my blog in disgust, let me reassure you that I have not been inciting racial hatred, invading any European countries, or even listening to the views of the Royal Family. It is a lot more innocuous than that.

With a day to spare in Yorkshire, I decided to test my navigational skills in preparation for walking the Pennine way and ultimately across America by navigating a few miles across a large featureless moorland aiming at a small stone carved over 3000 years ago with a swastika, hence the Nazi connection.

Anyway, I set off up the Moor, map in hand. After a mile or two, I realised that I was walking through an area the map worryingly marked "danger area!". Unhelpfully, the map gave no clue as to what dangers I might face. Regardless, I carried on, slightly wearily, looking out for low flying aeroplanes, holes in the ground, and everything in between.

Another mile or so down the path, I stumbled across a line of grouse butts. Again, do not turn away in disgust, I am not being rude! Butts are dugouts in the Moors used for shooting grouse. This was a danger more deadly than any of those I had considered. Low flying planes are all well and good, but lead shot let lose by chinless wonders wielding aging shotguns is something altogether different.

I then considered whether it was or not shooting season. Somewhere in my mind the glorious 12th stuck out. Or was it the glorious 9th? Come to think of it, which month contains this oh so glorious date? I had no idea, so illogically decided to carry on regardless.

You may by now have got the impression that I do not approve of grouse hunting. Quite the contrary, I simply do not approve of landed gentry firing bullets willy nilly in my vicinity. Without the hunters there would be no grouse and no heather Moors.

This may seem a bit backward, but the Moors are an entirely manufactured landscape. Without frequent burning by hunters, the heather would be outgrown by bracken, the bracken would be outgrown by bushes, and the bushes would be outgrown by trees. The grouse would be long gone by this point, as they rely on new heather buds and shoots for food. Three thousand odd years ago, when the prehistoric inhabitants of Ilkley Moor were carving Nazi propaganda in the hill's rocks, the area was still completely forested.

Back to the walk, my path crossed another Neolithic feature of Ilkley Moor; the twelve apostles stone circle. Now I know the circle is called the twelve apostles circle because there are twelve stones and were twelve apostles, but would it really have been so difficult to think of something that existed by the dozen when the stone circle was built to name it after?

Finally, I found myself in the area of the swastika stone. Luckily, it began to rain. This is not normally lucky, but to be honest I did not really want myself, a bearded twenty something year old, to be found scouring the Moors looking for symbols from the Third Reich, and the rain had sent most ramblers looking for shelter. In actuality, I was quite glad not all the ramblers had gone home. A small crowd of three surrounded the rock rendering it slightly easier to find. Furthermore, the smooth curves of the prehistoric swastika looked nothing like Hitler's crude straight-lined efforts.

In case you are wondering, the slight similarity between the Bronze Age swastika and Hitler's symbol in no way means that the Stone Age Britons were Nazis. It might however mean that the Nazis were Stone Aged*.

Anyway, navigational test passed, I jumped on a train back to my Grandparent's house just in time for Grandma's shepherd's pie. There is nothing quite like Grandma's cooking. Thank you Granny!

*Edit (08/07/2010): Yes Mr O'Connor, I know that the Stone Aged was not 3000-5000 years ago, I was using a little artistic license.