What a useful course for any natural history orientated visitor to or resident of Scotland. Roddy takes the group through the Gaelic landscape, starting with the vocabulary of the basic physical features before completing the picture of these by progressing to the descriptors for those features. The course provides you with a key to unlock the rich Gaelic chorography locked into the previously impenetrable place-names provided by the Ordnance Survey. Information is not only the generic ‘Big Hill’ but can hide habitat information down to species level and specific land usage, ‘Oak Coppice’ and ‘Corrie of the Lambs’
Obviously a two day course cannot be comprehensive, but Roddy also ensures the participants are comfortable with the use of Gaelic-English dictionaries and introduces the group to some simple rules regarding Gaelic pronunciation and Grammar thus ensuring we were equipped to take our new skills out into the field and tackle most challenges. Indeed, I was so enthused I recorded my track from Kindrogan to home and analysed the Gaelic place-names along the route after I got back.
These new skills will be invaluable not only for landscape analysis and planning of areas for wildlife recording but also for indications of suitable areas for archaeological investigations and will add interest to long distance wanderings in the more remote areas of my Island home.