Ailsa Craig and the return of its puffins.

Having teased you with remote glimpses of Ailsa Craig from the Clyde coast of Ayrshire, I think it is time for a closer look. It is best to choose a day with a good forecast as the volcanic plug stands in spendid isolation, 15km from the nearest land. It is also known as Paddy's Milestone as it is half way between Belfast and Glasgow. It is on the sea route taken by many Irish families who travelled to Scotland following famine in Ireland. Its microgranite has been quarried for the production of curling stones used in a popular Scottish winter pastime.



We went in May when the thousands of seabirds had returned to their breeding grounds on its precipitous cliffs. We paddled past colonies of gannets, fulmars, guillemots, black guillemots. and razorbills.



A particular treat was to see a small group of colourful puffins. Last century, a colony of over 30,000 pairs had been wiped out by rats which escaped from a ship wreck. The puffin burrows were too accessible and the rats preyed on the chicks and eggs in the spring and summer then cannibalised each other during the autumn and winter. The rats were recently exterminated using poisoned grain. Within a few years, a small breeding colony of puffins has reestablished itself. They are now a welcome sight, evidence, on a very small scale, that what man has done, he can undo. Let's just hope the climate is as fortunate as a few puffins.

More from the cave of Mr Sawney Bean

The entrance to Sawney Bean's cave is at the foot of Bennane Head on the lower Firth of Clyde. It is in a fabulous, remote situation with the monolith of Ailsa Craig punctuating the horizon. At high tide, the cave is entered by a traverse on rocks above the sea, followed by a climb of about 10 metres to the entrance. As the walls of the cave are worn smooth it must have been created by the sea following the last ice age when sea levels were higher. The land had been depressed by the sheer weight of thousands of metres of ice. The ice had also worn away the ash cone of Ailsa Craig and transported erratic granite boulders from its volcanic plug as far south as Wales.



Grafitti pointing to the inner chamber of the cave where over 1,000 souls are reputed to have been murdered before being cannibalised by the Bean clan.



It was a welcome relief to escape to the open sea and sky.