The meeting of the Field Club on 16th August 2026 was scheduled to visit Taylor’s Shore at Drumbeg, but unusually high bracken growth and slippery paths forced a rethink. We re-located to the west side of the mouth of the Oldany River (NC1033), where a good track runs down to the narrows between Oldany Island and the mainland. A Jetty is indicated on the O.S. map; there is no structure as such, but a number of boats are moored there.
Track
Nine members of the Club were ferried down to the parking place just east of the lowest bridge over the river and set off along the track (photo 1). A large sprawling grey willow by the gateway displayed fronds of the largest British lichen tree lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria, a reminder that we were in ‘Atlantic Rainforest’ country.
Curving through the saltings at this point is an old stone wall (photo 2). It is of varying heights and unknown purpose. However, a member of the party suggested that it might be part of an ancient fish trap. Since salmon and sea trout certainly ran up the Oldany River in times past, this is a possibility.
Growing out of the track for much of its length are tufts of a dainty, somewhat ‘spiky’ rush, with straw-coloured flowering heads, over-topped by long-leaf-like bracts (photo 3). It is slender rush Juncus tenuis, an alien species from the Americas, first recorded in the British Isles in 1883, and in Assynt in 1943. This is one of a handful of local sites for the species, all on roadsides or tracks. One of the older, but still very useful, British floras (Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, 1962) describes it as having ‘seeds dispersed on cartwheels, etc.’, for which read car tyres, although few vehicles use this track.
Rowan trees beside the track were fruiting in abundance and Gwen found a large pellet full of the skins of their berries (photo 4), probably that of a hooded crow.
Shorelines
At the end of the track we inspected the shingle beach at the edge of the narrows. Here, at low tide, detached plants of ‘crofters’ wig’ Ascophyllum nodosum ecad mackayi occur in quantity (photo 5). This is a form of egg or knotted wrack confined to extremely sheltered parts of Scottish lochs, especially in the north-west; it was described in an earlier article.
Turning north, we fought our way through bracken and scrub to find somewhere to sit for a while on the shoreline. Grassland beside an old ruin gave good views over the shallow waters between the mainland and Oldany Island, and in the foreground was a small island (photo 6), which is said to be topped by more ruins.
It is well-vegetated (photo 7), with the maritime umbellifer Scots lovage Ligusticum scoticum, upright dark-brown fruiting stems of curled dock Rumex crispus, also a coastal species, and, less predictably, trailing stems of honeysuckle Lonicera periclymenum. From the healthy condition of these and other plants, it appears that red deer do not get out to the island.
Whilst we were enjoying the view, a couple of large whiskered heads broke the surface of the water, from their size and straight profiles bull grey seals (photo 8). They must be attracted to these waters by feeding opportunities since, so far as we know, they do not breed in this part of the north-west.
A little further off, we counted about a dozen common or harbour seals sprawled in typical banana-shaped profiles on a skerry (photo 9). They do breed in the area, with up to sixty individuals present at times.
Views
Lunch was taken on the shoreline a little further north and we then turned back uphill to a low ridge which affords more views across the area (photo 10). Conspicuous to the north was the sandy peninsula on the eastern side of the island known as Mol Ban, with a former salmon bothy at its landward end.
In the 1990s this was rented by the local GP, Dr Stuart Nairn, who had a telephone line installed for emergencies. The peninsula is well worth a visit for those with access to a canoe or boat, since it bears a wealth of maritime plants, as well as frog orchid Dactylorhiza viridis in season at the seaward end.
Walking along the ridge to its eastern end gave us good views over the mouth of the Oldany River (the Dornaidh), towards Culkein Lodge (photo 11). Just below us were intertidal rocks and shallows covered with gulls (photo 12), for which this a favourite loafing area. There must have been over 150 individuals, a mixture of herring and common gulls, with a sprinkling of great black-backed gulls.
Saltings
We then dropped down to the northern edge of the saltings, which we were able to cross over back to the access track, since the tide had gone out. A shallow pool contained what looked like very fine green string (photo 13), examples of one of Assynt’s rarest, if otherwise rather unimpressive, maritime plants, beaked tasselweed Ruppia maritima.
This is only readily identifiable when in fruit (see the illustration from Stella Ross-Craig’s definitive work Drawings of British Plants 1948-1974; photo 14). It now occurs at just one other known site in Assynt, a small saltmarsh pool at Duart, Nedd (NC1332), although it was found at Achmelvich (NC0724) until a watercourse there was dammed.
Nearby, the short saltmarsh turf contained a dense mat of quite the smallest of the brown algae found around the coasts of Assynt, moss wrack Fucus cottonii (photo 15). This is virtually restricted in Great Britain to sheltered saltmarshes on the west coast of Scotland, and is something of a curiosity, since it does not seem to fruit.
Surprises on the way back
The party became spread out on their way back to the cars, but the laggards were rewarded, since Gwen made two discoveries on the top of the seaward wall of the bridge over the Oldany River.
The first was a couple of pine marten scats (photo 16). These contained the usual mix of small mammal fur and bones, together with skins of a couple of rowan berries, of which they are fond. Pine martens appear to like walls and have been seen parading along them in local gardens, towards raspberry patches.
She also spotted an adult slow-worm lying in thin vegetation on top of the wall (photos 17-18). We were not sure whether it was male or female and this uncertainty was compounded when she took another look at the site on her way home later in the day, and found that it had been joined by a second, slightly darker, individual (photo 19).
The peak mating period for slow-worms is in the spring (late April to the end of June) and females produce their young from mid-August. From the relatively large size of their abdomens they may both have been females just about to give birth.
Neither pine martens nor slow-worms appear to have been previously noted at this spot.
Ian M. Evans and Gwen Richards Photographs by Gwen Richards