It isn’t a trick of the camera – the field is literally a carpet of daisies. I’m not sure why this particular field should have so many daisies – the neighbouring fields have far less.

I’ve taken the path that descends  from the summit of Ben Baun – the highest of the Twelve Bens – to the pass at Maumina many times. Every time, I glance over at the ‘hanging rock’ to see if it is still there. The rock looks finely balanced and doesn’t appear to have moved even an inch in the 6 years that separates the two above pictures. And why should I expect it to move ? The rock has probably hasn’t moved in my lifetime, or indeed many lifetime. The hard rock that makes up much of the Twelve Bens mountain range is a result of geological alchemy – sandstone created as the sediment of a 5oo million year old ocean later transmuted to quartzite through huge tectonic forces. Over time, the quartzite became exposed through erosion, was lifted up to form mountains around 10 million years ago, only to get carved up by a procession of glaciers as the various Ice Ages gauged valleys through the mountain range¹.

I’ve tramped across the Bens in snow a few times and it’s great fun, if only for the novelty value. No doubt, the freezing and thawing action that takes place every winter in Connemara will eventually send the hanging rock tumbling down towards Maumina , and as long as I’m not walking under it when it happens, I don’t mind.

¹Writing this post sent me back to Tim Robinson’s “Connemara – listening to the wind”, part of a trilogy of books which are as good a guide to Connemara as you could hope to find.

This little bird is a female stonechat, perched on a  fence on Inishbofin. The island is full of them.