Strangford Lough

 

The sight of the lough fills the soul with a sense of spaciousness; to look on it is to feel poised in luminous air.  On fine days  the atmosphere is of a limpid clarity like that which bathes the Hebridean hills and the lakes of Iceland; a light which gives an unearthly translucency to the scene – pellucid, indescribable, as if the whole round world were a clairvoyant’s crystal gleaming with soft brilliance and colour.  The thin, distant strip of land separating sky and sea emphasises by contrast the vastness of the scene.  On Strangford’s shores I find myself murmuring with the Psalmist: ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room.’  (EA Armstrong Birds of the Grey Wind 1940)

Strangford and Lecale is famed for its scenery, its wildlife, its farmscape and its built heritage.

Wintering brent geese, Rough Island

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This small group of brent pass in powerful flight "black outstretched necks adorned with little collars, vermiculated backs contrasting with silver bellies, dark wings beating a common measure but not in time - mingled regularity and irregularity, the secret of a satisfying artistic pattern." EA Armstrong