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.

Shelduck at dawn, Reagh Island

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The mist lifted to reveal the dawn flight of the shelduck - curious-looking birds, halfway between a duck and a goose, mainly black and white, with a bottle-green head, a large red beak and an orange breast-band.