The Famous Tay Whale Dundee city centre. Paul Godfrey described McGonagall on the strength of the "Tay Whale" and other verse as "the worst poet in the English language". Hugh MacDiarmid wrote of the "Tay Whale" that "what this [the verses about John Wood and the Tay Whale] amounts to, of course, is simply what quite uneducated and stupid people—the two adjectives by no means necessarily go together, for many uneducated people have great vitality and a raciness of utterance altogether lacking here—would produce if asked to recount something they had read in a newspaper." MacDiarmid continued that "in their retailings of, or comments
Inner Tay Estuary reedbeds. There are two large islands: Mugdrum Island opposite Newburgh and Moncreiffe Island immediately below Perth. The narrow form of the estuary and the large volume of freshwater from the Rivers Tay and Earn restrict the influence of salt water west of the Tayport narrows. Much of the tidal water in the estuary is freshwater or mildly brackish. The 20 km or so stretch between the railway bridge and the confluence of the Rivers Tay and Earn is a site of special scientific interest. The current SSSI was notified in August 1999 and extends to 4,115 hectares or thereby. Scottish