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Bow fiddle rock gleams white in Scottish sunshine. Portknockie, Moray. Black & white study.

I was down at water level, deep in shadows cast by the cliffs and the low angle of the sun. This enabled the Bow Fiddle Rock to be overexposed in a shaft of sun, with some detail rescued by HDR of 3 different exposures.

 

Bow Fiddle Rock is a natural sea arch near Portknockie on the eastern coast of Scotland. It is so called because it resembles the tip of a fiddle bow. It is composed of Quartzite, a metamorphic rock which was originally quartz sandstone. This rock is part of the Cullen Quartzite formation which is seen along the coast between Buckie and Cullen and is some 2,400m thick and dates from the Neoproterozoic Era, 1,000 to 541 million years ago These rocks were folded when the ancient continents of Laurentia and Avalonia collided during the Caledonian orogeny. They later became exposed at the surface where sea and weather eroded the structure seen today The rock formation is both a tourist attraction and nesting place for sea birds including herring gulls, great black-backed gulls and lesser black-backed gulls. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_Fiddle_Rock

 

 

Portknockie (Scottish Gaelic: Port Chnocaidh, the hilly port) is a coastal village on the Moray Firth within Moray, Scotland.

The village's name is written as Portknockies in the Old Parish Registers. This would suggest that the port's name referred to not one, but two rocky hills at the hythe - the Port Hill and the Greencastle. Nearby towns include Buckie, Findochty and Cullen. The village was founded in 1677 and it became a significant herring fishing port during the nineteenth century, although today only a handful of commercial inshore boats remain. The town was on the railway network, until Portknockie station closed in 1968. A popular site in Portknockie is Bow Fiddle Rock, a large rock about 50 feet high just off the coast. The quartzite structure has a large sea arch, which somewhat resembles the bow of a fiddle, making it an example of a natural arch. Small numbers of seabirds nest on the coastal cliffs. These include fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, common gull, razorbill and shag. Additionally common eider can be seen in and around the harbour and coves during the summer months. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portknockie

 

 

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Uploaded on December 13, 2016
Taken on February 27, 2016