My roadside shrine to nature

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/21/roadside-shrine-nature

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On South Uist it’s not unusual to come across a roadside shrine. Each has a glass-fronted niche containing a devotional statue of the Virgin Mary and often a posy of artificial flowers. With whitewashed or painted exteriors, sometimes decorated with shells, they are all beautifully maintained. All, that is, except for the one in the adjacent field which has fallen into disuse.

But though no longer in service as a shrine it is not without purpose. Its unpainted stone has been colonised by lichens. Best of all is the familiar orange Xanthoria parietina, which sits atop the roof like a miniature thatch.

On its walls what at first appear to be variations in the natural colour of the stone turn out to be other less immediately recognisable species. There are rosettes both large and small of low-growing white, others of a mottled grey and irregular spreads a curious dull green.

The shrine is much visited by birds, for at nearly two metres tall, it is higher than almost everything else in the vicinity and provides a useful lookout position. Each spring the male of “our” pair of garden blackbirds makes use of it as a favoured songpost, and maybe one year the twosome will attempt to breed within its shelter, building perhaps in the empty niche and tucking themselves away behind the unoccupied plinth.

But perhaps the greatest use of the structure is made by the three rams that are the usual occupants of the field in which it stands. When gales sweep the island and rain flies horizontally through the air they can be found huddled in its lee. There is refuge for at best two at a time, but they seem to manage the situation amicably, taking turns to get the best of the shelter.

When temperatures rise the shrine becomes a source of shade, the three companions tracking the changing direction of the cast shadow. Even on an ordinary dull day like today, something attracts them, for this morning they are clustered around it, the largest asleep with his chin resting on one of the steps at its base.