Smith Wild Island

A Year in the Hebrides
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-85790-273-3
Verlag: Origin
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

In paintings and words, this book portrays a year in the life of Oronsay, a remote Hebridean island that is farmed by the RSPB for the benefit of wildlife. Jane Smith describes her encounters with birds and animals, both wild and domesticated, and the human inhabitants of the island who look after them, in a humorous and personal account. Her vibrant artwork unforgettably evokes the beauty and variety of nature in this part of the world. Any lover of wildlife, of art or of the Hebrides will find this book instantly absorbing. 'Jane's illustrations and prose transport you to a very special place and let you into the lives of some very special people . . . skilfully managing this nature reserve and meeting all the challenges thrown at them' - Stuart Housden, Director of RSPB Scotland.

After gaining a degree in Zoology, Jane Smith became a wildlife film maker for the BBC Natural History Unit and National Geographic. She won an Emmy for her work and has also appeared on BBC Radio 4's Tweet of the Day. She now creates wildlife art from her home on the west coast of Scotland to communicate her passion for the natural world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Jane

Leseproben

JUNE

I decide to visit Oronsay every month to get to know the island in all its moods and seasons, and thus I become a regular customer of the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry company. My husband, Mark, drops me off in Oban. The CalMac terminal has been the beginning of so many great adventures for us, most of them involving kayaks and camping. Mark looks wistfully at the black and red ferry gliding into the bay, before he heads down the road to collect the children from school.

If I were selling the crossing to Colonsay as a film script, I would pitch it somewhere between and . It feels as if my fellow voyagers and I are heading for another planet, remote from the modern world. The travellers are from all walks of life. There are schoolchildren going home for the weekend, birdy nerds with beards and binoculars, and tweedy types with headscarves, pearls and terriers.

Everyone has their own ferry habits. Mike Peacock stands on deck, binoculars to hand. On a recent trip he saw two sea-eagles talon-grappling – spinning as they fell seawards, their feet locked together. Although I would happily go for a walk in a gale, standing still and shivering on a wind-swept ferry deck while breathing in the swirling diesel fumes compounds my seasickness. In rough weather I lie down in the lounge and wait until it’s all over.

After a few crossings, one starts to find Groundhog Day variations on the theme. There is always the smell of chicken curry, but some days the chef’s special is Chicken Korma and sometimes it’s a Biryani. There is always the sound of someone’s car alarm being jolted into action by the vibration of the big diesel engines, but in rough weather these seasick vehicles form a chorus. Sometimes, racing up the stairs to get a seat in the cafeteria, I suddenly find myself in a mirrored world where everything is back-to-front. The regular ferry has gone in for repairs and its replacement does not have the cafeteria where I expect it to be.

On Oronsay, I set to work, trying to understand what makes this place so rich in wildlife. The main conservation workers on the farm are the cattle and sheep, which shape the wildlife habitat by their grazing. There are different mouths for different jobs. Black-faced sheep crop the field grass short so that choughs can feed, while Hebridean sheep have narrower mouths, and graze the rough hill-ground. Luing cattle grab mouthfuls of long grass in the wetter fields. As they poach up the ground with their feet, they create nesting hummocks for lapwings.

Lapwing on nest.

In the evening, Izzy cooks dinner for us all. We talk about the visit of the . This cruise-ship had anchored off Oronsay and sent a small party ashore for a guided tour. Izzy was surprised at the emotional reaction of the visitors. She has lived here for two years now, and has grown used to her surroundings. Many of the visitors were fifty years older than her, and were overjoyed to see birds they had not seen since childhood. The lapwing’s call and swooping, skirling flight were a herald of spring for centuries, but in many parts of the country now they are only memories. In one generation, intensive farming has removed them from the countryside.

I ask Mike to explain why this happened. He told us that in the past, land was left to rest every few years, so regaining its fertility. This fallow land provided nesting places for birds. Now farmers can keep their fields in constant use by applying artificial fertilisers. The government has also paid farmers to drain any damp fields, so bringing them into production. Lastly, herbicides on the crops remove all wild plants, and pesticides remove the insects, leaving nothing for the birds to eat.

What struck me most from this conversation is that once the generation from the have passed away, no one will remember how the countryside used to be. The youngsters will not realise what they have lost, and that will be an end to it.

Next morning I go in search of redshanks which nest in marshy ground with the lapwings. They both benefit from the way the land is farmed here. From the Land Rover I watch a family with recently hatched chicks. The parents want to escort their young to the marshy pools where there will be plenty of food. To get there they must cross another family’s territory. The neighbours don’t like the invasion and there is quite a commotion. A fair stushie, as people say here.

At dusk there are corncrakes calling all around the farm. Until 1900, the corncrake was present in every county in Britain. In England, Mrs Beeton’s gave a recipe for them, with instructions to ‘Roast before a clear fire . . . and serve on bread crumbs with a tureen of brown gravy.’ In Edinburgh Lord Cockburn reported, ‘I have stood in Queen Street or the opening at the north-west corner of Charlotte Square and listened to the ceaseless rural corn-cracks, nestling happily in the dewy grass.’

As hand-scything was overtaken by horse-drawn machinery, and then by mechanised mowers, corncrake numbers declined. By 1985 they were confined to the northwest fringes of Britain, including Colonsay and Oronsay, where only two calling males were heard. The situation was desperate. ‘My job now is to run a corncrake factory,’ Mike tells me. ‘They are the main focus of the work here, although other wildlife benefits too.’

Take one arable field in which to grow fodder for your livestock. This field may be grazed in winter to prevent vegetation becoming too dense.

Remove grazers by beginning of March. Add animal dung around the field edge to promote growth of nettles. Re-categorise nettles in your mind from ‘weeds’ to ‘early shelter for corncrakes’.

The male corncrakes will return from Africa in the last week of April. Although the nettles will only be a foot high, birds can hide there, safe from predators. Enjoy their crazy craking as they establish territories.

Females return in May. For the next five months the corncrakes get on with their lives and so can you. Allow your grass to grow while the birds raise two broods of chicks, in the process eating many insect pests.

Modern farmers have moved to cutting their fodder as green silage, but this is cut earlier than hay, meaning many corncrake nests are mown down. Apply for subsidies that compensate for a later harvest, and cut in early September.

When harvesting your hay, adopt the ‘corncrake friendly’ system of mowing from the centre of the field towards the edge, allowing chicks to escape into cover. The adults are moulting at this time and cannot fly, so they will be trapped if the fields are mown from the outside inwards.

The corncrakes will depart by the end of September. Because your grass has had time to drop seed, you will enjoy flocks of finches in your cut fields in autumn. Feed your wildlife-friendly hay to your animals over winter, and look forward to the call of the corncrake when it returns next spring.

In 2014, 87 calling males were recorded on Colonsay and Oronsay, but they are still very vulnerable. A two-year gap in European Union funding, starting in 2015, has meant that some farmers have already taken land out of the Corncrake Management Scheme.

I’m hunkered down in a field, hiding from the wind. I’m wearing two fleeces, a down jacket and lined trousers; it must be midsummer’s day in the Hebrides. I was planning to draw butterflies feeding on the machair flowers, but a gale from the north-west is flattening the grasses and the butterflies are hunkered down too.

Machair was created over many centuries by the people who crofted this land. Where the alkaline shell-sand of the island rim met the acidic peat inland, farmers piled storm-washed kelp on top to enrich the soil. The more vigorous grasses were stunted because no artificial fertilizer was added, allowing delicate wildflowers to compete.

The rest of the island is green and lush with summer growth. Over by the house, the vegetation in the corncrake fields is now taller than I am – a foamy sea of cow parsley. Swallows skim the billowing crests like wind-surfers in the breakers.

But it is the machair field that gives Mike the most pride. He gave me a tour when I arrived. ‘I think I’m in love with this field,’ he said. ‘Fifteen years ago when we arrived here, this was short, grazed turf, but looking at the variety of leaves, we could see it had potential.’

In March, this field is closed to grazing to allow the flowers to grow. After the flower seeds have fallen the field is cut for the hay, so removing nutrients from the system. Plants like yellow rattle also help. They are parasites on grass, sapping their strength and preventing them from dominating the field. The vegetation is only a few feet high, but rich with colour and variety. Six species of orchid, including lesser butterfly orchid, grow here.

I get back into the Land Rover, holding tightly to the door. It’ll be ripped off its hinges if the wind catches it. A swallow is...