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Countryside jobs available on our islands

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There are 3 roles available:

This role can also be found on CJS here: https://www.countryside-jobs.com/job/feb23/seasonal-wildlife-ranger-mull-and-iona-community-trust-1602-1

Meanwhile the National Trust for Scotland are recruiting for 2 roles which will work alongside our ranger service here on Mull, Iona and Staffa – a Staffa Seasonal Ranger, and an Inner Hebrides Property Manager.

More details of the Staffa role can be found here: https://www.countryside-jobs.com/job/feb23/seasonal-ranger-national-trust-for-scotland-1002-6

More details of the manager role can be found here: https://www.countryside-jobs.com/job/mar23/inner-hebrides-property-manager-national-trust-for-scotland-1002-3

Nature Adventure Days

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As lockdown started to ease, the ranger service teamed up with Camas Outdoor Centre, Bendoran Water Activities Club, Headland Explorations and South West Mull and Iona Development’s new community garden to provide 3 weeks of outdoor activities for the second half of the school summer holidays.  As all the usual summer island events were cancelled, we wanted to provide some fun primarily for local families who might not manage a break away this year after being cooped up homeschooling for weeks

Despite limited places available due to rules about the number of households able to meet together, we soon had happy kayakers in Camas bay and rock climbers tackling routes at Knockvologan and Camas Quarry.

Volunteer Abbie Cato helped plan and run some nature events for younger children.  We went to Fionnphort beach and found lots of interesting rockpool creatures including shore crabs, blennies, two types of anemones and bright orange breadcrumb sponge:

Then played some games about food chains (who eats who in the rockpool), limpets (did you know they move around underwater eating algae, then as the tide goes out they go back to their ‘home scar’ where their shell grows to match the rock exactly and stop them drying out), dolphin echolocation (we’ve all noticed more marine mammals around during lockdown, with reduced boat traffic), and seabird migration – designing obstacle courses around which we had to throw stones representing birds on their journey.

The following week we had a real-life mystery quest at Camas – to figure out why there was an abandoned oystercatcher nest on the beach.  We discussed how rangers might find out – looking for tracks and signs, watching from a hide, using trail cameras etc.  Participants had great fun with magnifying glasses looking for wildlife clues down the track, such as footprints in the mud.  We had a shortlist of 3 predators – mink, otter and raven and learned about where each of them lived, and practised moving like our chosen creature.  Each child then had a pizza box with a lump of clay to make into a pizza and a list of toppings (the diet of their chosen animal) they had to collect things to represent these eg. crab shell, rabbit skull, grass seed to represent grain, make seaweed into a picture of a spider etc.) which we took up to Camas’ outdoor pizza oven and pretended to cook.  Next we built a wildlife viewing hide in the woods from branches – and managed to stay still for 5 minutes while a few small birds came past.  The group decided that the raven was the likely culprit and were rewarded with the sight and sound of one flying past overhead.

We also held an activity day at our emerging community garden in the grounds of the Ross of Mull Historical Centre, looing at invertebrates found in the stream and on bushes and trees.  After hunting for them, drawing them and making cardboard models, it was time to help with garden clearance and we had a go at sawing rhododendron branches and trimming willow twigs.  Everything will be reused for garden structures or wildife habitat piles.

After weeks of back-garden citizen science earlier this summer, I’ve also been having my own nature adventure days on several recent trips to Burg, checking on our species-rich grassland, clearing bracken and monitoring some rare species including the slender scotch burnet moth and the tiny Iceland purslane plant.  Huge thanks to all the volunteers for their help!   Had some lovely sightings of golden eagles and peregrines around the cliffs while there.  Also on a pre-season trip to Staffa our boat was surrounded in all directions by dozens of common dolphins leaping into the air!

It’s great to be out and about again isn’t it?  Whether local resident or visitor we can all play our part in leaving no trace, take your rubbish home or hold onto it until you find a bin.  Please don’t throw it out of your car window.  We picked up 30 bags of roadside rubbish during lockdown and sadly it’s starting to reappear on the verges 😦

Thanks for reading and please make sure to take care of our environment on your travels.   Emily

Photos by Philip Yielder, Peter Upton, Abbie Cato and Emily Wilkins

 

Autumn in the air

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Bright rowan berries, bracken changing colour…although mixed with a lovely splash of purple from scabious, knapweed and heather flowers, it definitely feels like autumn is approaching, especially with the wild weather we’ve been experiencing lately.  Our recent guided walk to Shiaba discovered the burn (usually easily fordable) to be a raging torrent so we had to be content with viewing most of the buildings in the distance!  Luckily as we stopped for lunch the clouds started to clear allowing views of Carsaig Arches and Colonsay too.

Here on Iona and Staffa we’ve just hosted the National Trust for Scotland’s footpath repair team, and also a hardy group of Thistle Camp workparty volunteers, who’ve been out in all weathers making improvements to our well-used paths.  With tens of thousands of visitors a year our footpaths need constant maintenance to counteract the impact of all those feet.  So enjoy our new stepping stones and a slightly less muddy experience next time you are walking to Columba’s Bay, the Hermit’s Cell or Staffa’s puffin colony!  Thistle Campers also worked on repairs to drystone walls and collected rubbish from a number of Iona’s beaches.  The footpath team will be back next spring when they will also be carrying out repair work to the landslide-affected path at Burg.

In my last blog post I told you about our first Nature Adventure Day along with Headland Explorations, well the programme continued with a group exploring St Martin’s Caves on Iona, foraging for seaweed and cooking it on a beach fire lit using flint and steel and natural tinder (dried bog cotton and grasses).  We had seaweed soup, seaweed-flavoured popcorn, fried seaweed and a carragheen pudding!  Thanks to Miek Zwamborn for sharing her expertise.

The last day involved an adventurous sail on Mark Jardine’s B.Marie, high winds causing us to abandon our original plans to travel around the south coast of the Ross of Mull for climbing and beach cleaning, in favour of heading around the north of Iona to sheltered Port Ban.  Everyone enjoyed having a go at climbing and investigating the plant life of the bay with a game of wildflower name pictionary.  Many thanks to the Dutch family from Erraid who kindly used their own boats to collect the beach rubbish from Traigh Gheal a few days later.

Other successful summer days included Woodland Tribe at Tiroran Community Forest where children and young people got to create their own adventure playground which should last up to 5 years.  Feel free to use it next time you’re there, and if you haven’t already seen the Woollen Woods, most of it is still in place too.  I’m now busy helping Bunessan Class 1 with their nature trail topic, along with Philip Yielder (Community Forester at Tiroran) so look out for a new trail to follow in the forest this autumn!

I also really enjoyed the opening celebrations for the Loch Pottie path, standing in the rain 10 minutes before the agreed time I was wondering whether anyone would turn up, but a last-minute rush saw over 100 people led by the pipe band and children on bikes all walking the path together to declare it open.  It’s since been great to see it well-used and appreciated by everyone from visitors on an evening stroll, to locals walking their dogs and children cycling to the shop.  Look out for new interpretation signage in due course.

The last of our wildlife surveys for the year saw me joined by some volunteers with a head for heights as we checked up on the spread of bracken at Burg and counted our population of the rare Iceland Purslane plant.  Work also continues on the bothy renovations at Burg, and on the Fingal’s Cave walkway on Staffa which is nearing completion.

As some of you will be aware through our displays at the agricultural shows we were covering endangered species, one of which may well be YOUR ranger service. The Ranger Service is a partnership made of National Trust for Scotland (NTS), Forest and Land Scotland (FLS)and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and we are managed by Mull and Iona Community Trust. Unfortunately, FLS cease to fund us totally at the beginning of April next year and SNH have cut their support by 50% so our ranger team may well be under threat unless we find alternative funding. If you have time to drop us a supportive email (to mfinch@mict.co.uk) about an event you have enjoyed, what your children thought about one of the school trips we have organised, the benefits of volunteering or the difference made by our co-ordination of community access projects, beach cleans or any other aspect of our work we’d be glad to hear from you as we can use any positive comments as evidence for potential funders! We will keep you up to date as things develop but any support for our service would be much appreciated.

thanks for reading,

Emily

 

A Summer on Mull

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 They say that all good things must come to an end, and my summer volunteering with the Ranger Service is no exception. I can hardly believe it’s already been two months since I arrived on this beautiful island and I’ll soon be heading back to the mainland and home to Yorkshire.

My final week on Mull started at the Tiroran Community Woodland outreach day, where visitors ate delicious cakes while watching eagles and crossbills (so I’m told….) soaring over the trees. We held our own event, planned by yours truly, later in the week. Armed with jumbo pavement chalk, we invited anyone and everyone to come and decorate the newly completed Loch Pottie Path, which joins the villages of Fionnphort and Creich. It was great to see visiting children playing hopscotch just metres away from local poets who had written special pieces for the event.

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A classic game, easier to play when you’re a child (trust me)

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Translation: what a light and a great view. I’m told it rhymes in Dutch!

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A contribution from one of our local poets

We did a lot of survey work this week, too. Since June I’ve regularly been out to monitor a shag colony nesting on the cliffs of Iona and my final visit on Tuesday revealed two chicks I hadn’t seen previously. Good news for a colony that was completely washed away last year!

Towards the end of the week, Emily (Ranger for South Mull, Iona, Burg and Staffa) and I were fortunate enough to spend a morning with the exceptional botanist Lynne Farrell, who has scoured Mull (and various other islands) on a mission to record the plants that live there. What I lack in botanical skill I make up for in powers of observation: we found a total of 110 different species in the small area we surveyed, more than when Lynne surveyed the same plot over twenty years ago.

 

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Lynne and I putting our binoculars to good use to zoom in on the plants over the stream

 

This week is a good representation of my time here; I don’t think many people will have had a summer as varied as mine. Assisting Emily, I’ve been everything from facepainter to wildlife tour guide to researcher to photographer to teaching assistant.

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‘Going Wild’ at Fionnphort beach

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Taking a well-earned break while surveying the plants on Burg

I’ve listened for corncrakes under a midnight sun, wild camped with the feral goats of Burg, stood top-deck on a tour boat looking for cliff-side nests and watched a sheepdog herd ducks at my first ever agricultural show.

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From left: Lizzy, Emily and me at Bunessan Show

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Wild camping on Burg – before the rain came

I’ve surveyed more species than I can count, (including the endemic slender scotch burnet moth and the extremely rare Iceland purslane), and my plant ID repertoire has expanded from daisy or dandelion to include such things as selfheal, butterwort and northern marsh orchid. I’ve watched dolphins playing in the sound of Iona, photographed puffins crash landing on Staffa and laughed at my own naivety for thinking a buzzard could possibly be a sea eagle.

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Can’t visit Staffa without photographing a puffin

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Bottlenose dolphins are regular visitors to the Sound of Iona

Outside of work I’ve explored the white sandy beaches of Ardalanish, Uisken and Kilvickeon, climbed Ben More, Mull’s only Munro, and eaten a life-changingly delicious cheesecake at Dervaig Artisan Bakery (not in the same day, though that would have been the perfect reward). I’ve also seen one or two absolutely stunning sunsets and views to islands I can barely point out on a map.

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Kilvickeon beach, one of my favourites

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An incredible sunset seen from Bunessan

I’m sure I’ll be back, but for now I’ll bid a fond farewell to the island and its people. I’m particularly grateful to Emily for her patience, guidance and conversation, which has helped make this summer an unforgettable experience.

Emilie

Start of the Summer Season

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Another Summer, another Volunteer Ranger! I’m Emilie, working down on the Ross of Mull with Emily W until mid-August. I’ve only been here a few weeks but already have plenty to report. 

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Bunessan, my home for the next 3 months.

My first day started quite relaxed, meeting Emily and sorting my paperwork, until about 4pm when we decided the weather was good enough for a midnight corncrake survey. We rushed home, grabbed our camping kit and caught the last ferry to Iona where the birds, declining across Western Europe, have a stronghold.

Exploring the island and eating a delicious pub dinner was a great way to spend the evening, made all the better by views of dolphins just off the coast! When the time came, the survey involved walking up and down the island listening to the birds’ calls and trying to figure out if you heard two individuals or one plus its echo. I’m glad Emily was there; the echoes fooled me more than once. With the survey done my first day was over and we headed to bed, slightly disappointed with the number of birds we’d heard.

The next day was just as hectic as the previous evening. We stomped across the island to find the shag nests I’ll be monitoring for the rest of the summer, then went all the way back to run an after school “nature club” at the island school. In the middle of that I managed to survey the fields to see whether they were being grazed or left to meadow – important information for conserving the corncrakes.

The next few days were slightly easier going. We took a group down to Carsaig, spotting seals and seabirds as well as the fossils the area is known for, then visited Lizzie and Caoimhe, the incredibly knowledgeable Mull Eagle Watch Rangers. Thanks to them I saw my first White Tailed Sea Eagle adult AND watched it feeding its precious chick in the nest.

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My first sea eagle, shame about the photographer!

My second week of work was just as extraordinary as the first. Starting on Sunday, Emily and I joined a Thistle Camp – a National Trust for Scotland working holiday group – that had boldly decided to wild camp on the beautiful Burg peninsula. None of us had banked on that day’s  feral goat count being a 9 hour hike, but I’m starting to think that no one gets an easy first day on Mull!

The next day we rejoined the campers to count Slender Scotch Burnet Moths and survey their food plants. These moths are endemic to (only found on) Mull and Ulva, so it’s important that we keep an eye on their numbers. After some initial confusion with six-spot Burnets and cinnabar moths, the group got their eyes in and found hundreds of  individuals across the sites we checked.  The future looks good for these pretty insects.

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Slender Scotch Burnet Moths

 

The camp wasn’t only about survey work. The team pulled bracken, cleared debris from the beach and helped repair the Burg bothy, a structure that will soon be restored its former glory. It was wonderful to join the campers for their final night in the wilderness, sharing their homemade mac and cheese and listening to the stories of the fun they’d had throughout the week. Thistle Camps are a great way to contribute to the maintenance of National Trust properties throughout Scotland – you can find out more here. 

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Not a bad place for a campsite…..

I’m not sure how I squeezed everything in, but week two also saw me head to Tiroran Community Forest with the RSPB and other conservation organisations to watch the ringing of a sea eagle chick, and revisit the shag nests on Iona to find that at least 3 chicks have hatched!

Week three has barely begun but is already off to a good start – I visited Staffa yesterday with Peter, the first dedicated Staffa Ranger, seeing bottlenose dolphins as well as the booming puffin population. It was a shame about the rain, but I suppose that’s to be expected in Scotland. We’re returning to the island later in the week to finish the seabird surveys that we couldn’t manage. A Ranger’s work is never done; there just aren’t enough hours in a day!

What a summer!

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Another update from us here on the Ross, but also a fond farewell from me as my time on the island volunteering with the Ranger Service draws to a close – what a summer it’s been! Some fantastic wildlife encounters and successful events along with unbelievable weather for the first few weeks of my stay have definitely made this a summer to remember.

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Iona sunsets are just something else…

It’s been great to experience such a wide range of wildlife survey techniques in some amazing locations – from monitoring Storm Petrel chicks on Staffa to surveying plants under the dramatic cliffs of Burg, it’s sometimes easy to forget that this is an actual day job! A couple of times this summer Emily and I have been helping Lynne Farrell, the county recorder for the Botanical Society of the British Isles, update her plant records – most recently on Burg coinciding with our own plant survey, and earlier in the season we were lucky enough to go out to Little Colonsay on Mark Jardine’s boat. Here we saw (and learnt) loads of interesting wildflower species, including the vibrant Bloody Cranesbill.

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B. Marie moored at Little Colonsay

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Bloody Cranesbill

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Beneath the cliffs of Burg

We’ve also had a couple of successful events recently – Abbie, who was doing summer work experience with us, held a survival skills event at Tiroran forest which included building a rather impressive den and then foraging for plants to make tea out of at the end. A great day had by all, even if the fire took a few valiant attempts to get going! The next week I was back at Tiroran leading an Eagle Hide walk, where we had nice views of a white-tailed eagle soaring over the treetops in the distance. I also organised and lead my own event recently – a drizzly yet interesting morning on Uisken beach exploring the rockpools and the beach, finding lots of cool species including breadcrumb sponge and by-the-wind sailors.

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Having a look in the rockpools

 

In mid-July I went to work with the NTS ranger team at Ben Lawers NNR for a couple of weeks, a very different landscape to what I’m used to on Mull. Here I got to experience some of the more land management perspectives of rangering including bracken bashing, tree planting with an NTS Trailblazer camp and path maintenance. The weekend that I arrived coincided with the launch of Chris Packham’s Bioblitz campaign – the team at Ben Lawers took on the challenge of 24 hours of biological recording, and we were the first site for Chris Packham and his team to visit, resulting in a very long but enjoyable day out recording on the hill. Being at Ben Lawers was great to experience working in a team of rangers, and my thanks go out to team for making me feel so welcome there.

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Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers behind

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Looking down the glen

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Chris Packham chatting to dragonfly expert Ruary Mackenzie

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The truck on it’s holidays

And finally, how can I not talk about some wildlife encounters whilst I’ve been here on Mull? You will have read my previous blog post about the evening trip to Staffa and the multitude of basking sharks, which still is a massive highlight for me, but it’s been a great few months overall for wildlife. Recently Emily and I were out on top of the cliffs at Burg, just walking to our National Plant Monitoring Scheme plots, when a family of golden eagles casually cruised by at eye-level. What a treat! By far the best Goldie sightings I’ve ever had. Along with that, I just can’t tire of seeing white-tailed eagles – looking up to the sky and seeing this unmistakeable ‘flying barn door’ is such a fantastic privilege.

Somehow, I managed to go the whole of June and July without seeing an otter, on the coastline that is supposedly so famous for otters, and I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about. However, when my boyfriend and parents were over visiting a couple of weeks ago, an otter conveniently showed it’s face and allowed us to watch roll about preening in the seaweed. And typically, I continued to see another 2 otters in that same week!

Along with the west-coast signature eagles and otters, this summer has been great for hen harrier sightings and lots of interesting moths and butterflies. I’ve also learnt loads of wildflowers – Emily has put up with my consistent pointing and saying “ooh what’s that?” for the last few months, so for that I’m very grateful for her patience!

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Making friends on Staffa

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View from the back of Fingal’s Cave during site tour with repair contractor – cave access is still out of bounds but walkway repairs are well underway!

Overall, volunteering with the ranger service has been such a valuable experience, and I’m so thankful for being given this opportunity. I’ve learned a countless number of new skills, met some great people and seen some fantastic wildlife.

I’m going to miss this place far too much, so I’m sure Mull will see me again soon!

Cheers

Georgia

We’re still here!

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Could be what our wildlife is thinking after a very mixed-up season.  Late spring, hot dry weather with the occasional sudden stormy wet day to contend with and now autumn colour seems to be creeping in early.  The Ross of Mull rangers are still here too – not much news from us lately I know, so let’s catch up!

In early June we had a group of enthusiastic volunteers on a working holiday, the National Trust for Scotland’s Thistle Camp scheme, visiting Burg.  A great chance for us to get all sorts of maintenance tasks tackled with many willing pairs of hands.  We had scheduled the camp earlier than usual hoping to survey our rare Slender Scotch Burnet Moths and much to our relief, numbers were the highest for several years.  These small but beautiful insects are only on the wing for a few weeks each June and it seems they have shifted their flight period to earlier in the year.  Most of the feral goats however were nowhere to be seen on our walk around the Ardmeanach peninsula, perhaps they had travelled elsewhere in search of water during this unusual dry spell?  However it wasn’t a wasted day as we were able to make good use of the walk by splitting into groups and one group set up some new plots for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme which will now be checked twice each summer.  The Thistle Campers also tackled repointing work on Burg’s bothy which is undergoing restoration, cleared out ditches and pulled bracken to improve moth habitat and reduce damage to our archaeology.  Many thanks everyone!

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Slender Scotch Burnet Moth

The same week Georgia and I led a walk to the fascinating St Martin’s caves on Iona.  A great place to visit as it’s quite hidden away and only accessible at low tide.  Sadly the rain poured down but the few hardy souls who joined us had an interesting time learning about crofting, geology and seaweed!

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St Martin’s Caves

Georgia has been working on a productivity survey of one of Iona’s shag colonies.  Unfortunately a day of heavy rain amongst weeks of sunshine caught them off guard and lots of nests have been washed away.  Shags do stagger their breeding times so we’ll keep an eye on things to see whether they can rebuild and lay more eggs or whether they’ll give up and wait until next year.

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Shags nesting at Pigeon’s Cave.  Photo credit Alan Foulkes.

In late June we had another lovely walk along the coast at Carsaig, plenty to see including ringed plover chicks like little balls of fluff on stilts running amongst the rocks, and interesting fossils on the beach at low tide.  It was almost too hot though so some of the group enjoyed going behind a waterfall into the coolness of the cave beyond.

It’s been great having local girl Abbie Cato on work experience with us during the summer holidays.  Living at Knockvologan she was the ideal person to help us out with her knowledge of Erraid on a guided walk around the tidal island.  She’s also lent a hand with several other events including our stand at Bunessan Show and our summer nature club on Iona, for which we had 18 children busy with a treasure hunt learning about what nature does for us, and an afternoon of art and games on the beach thinking about what we can do for nature.  Both Georgia and Abbie are working on their John Muir Awards and have contributed an article to Young Scot’s My Story 365 as part of the Year of Young People.

 

Photo credits: Tim Sparks

With the warm weather it’s been a good year for butterfly sightings – some of our highlights have been a rare Marsh Fritillary in the office garden, the lovely Scotch Argus and the Grayling with its camouflage pattern on the underside of the wings – and we have been promoting the Big Butterfly Count at our events including our stand at Uisken Games where we were kept busy with sea creature facepainting and making seed bombs and badges.

Our Biodiversity Day in the garden at the Ross of Mull Historical Centre turned up some great moths from our (harmless) trap set overnight, including the stunning Garden Tiger and the less common Old Lady, last recorded on Mull back in 2009!

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Gold spot moth

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Cockscomb Prominent moth

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Old Lady moth

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Moth trap in action

Add to the mix helping out with a Keats-themed historical walk at Derrynaculen…

 

Photo credits: Abbie Cato

…looking at history in the landscape around Iona with a lovely American family, plant surveys at Burg, more bird surveys and visiting archaeologists on Staffa (where repair work has commenced on the cave walkway) and leading eagle walks at Tiroran forest and it’s been a very full and interesting summer so far.

Until next time…

Emily

After the storms…

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Hello from the snow-free Ross of Mull!  While much of the mainland was buried under snow drifts, here we saw hardly a snowflake apart from on the hills, although it was very cold and dry in that harsh east wind.  Spray from Burg’s waterfalls froze solid on the cliffs, and in Bunessan even the beach was frozen at low tide!

Snow-capped Bearraich
Clear frosty view with snowy Ben More
Ice on the beaches at Bunessan

We haven’t escaped winter storm damage though.  Unfortunately part of the walkway into Fingal’s Cave on Staffa has been washed away.  Wave erosion formed the island’s famous caves and is an ongoing process, as water pressure acts on the cracks between the basalt columns.  This means that there is currently no access to Fingal’s cave on foot, although it can still be viewed from a boat.  We have a team of specialist engineers working on a solution, and meanwhile the rest of the island including the puffin colony remains accessible.

Wintery view from Staffa
The path now ends here!
View from Staffa on a winter’s day
Engineer at work

 

Other winter tasks include regular checks on our visitor counters and infrastructure such as the ladder at Burg.  It means carrying a laptop to some out-of-the-way places, but a good reason for a walk on a bright winter day.  Thanks to Terry Ward for the photos.

Now that birdsong and catkins are giving hints of spring, afterschool nature clubs have restarted.  This term involves activities related to forests, investigating trees and the wildlife that lives amongst them.  Last week we made some woolly flowers for an installation at Tiroran Community Forest later this month.  (It was also World Book Day which explains the costumes and face paint!)  Well done to Monica Haddock for organising this.  If it goes well we may consider a full Woollen Woods experience for gala fortnight, asking folk to make all sorts of woodland plants and creatures for display.  Meanwhile, come along and picnic amongst the woollen meadow on Saturday 24th March!

There’s still time to apply for our summer volunteer assistant ranger position, as the closing date is Wednesday 14th March at 9am.  See previous blog post for details.

Emily

Bringing you up to date

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Hello!  Thought it was time for an update of news from my patch over the last couple of months.

Our summer events programme finished earlier than usual as I was off to Edinburgh to begin a part-time postgraduate course in Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education.  I enjoyed the company of some great people from all over the world, and perhaps I’ll share some of my learning with you as the course progresses over the next few years, as we are very much encouraged to reflect on our own practice.  Of course it was also good to come home to one of my favourite Mull views!

Anyway, before I went there was plenty of time to fit in some great outdoor days with both visitors and locals, including another lovely walk to the tidal island of Erraid, always a popular event in our guided walks programme.  It was hard to drag everyone away from the beautiful beach at Balfour’s Bay!

Kate and I led another successful visit to Tiroran Community Forest with Bunessan Primary class 1, learning all about our sea eagles with Meryl at the hide, and finding out about dinosaurs and fossils.  We made plaster casts of footprints, played games about camouflage and designed dinosaurs which might survive in a forest habitat, out of natural materials.

Our final NTS Thistle Camp of the year worked hard to improve access around Iona and Staffa with lots of very muddy pathwork including building stone steps, repairing stiles and bridges, and replacing a section of boardwalk.  They also cleared a huge bramble patch from an area behind Iona school, and had a go at scything.  This year the week  included 2 days on Mull where the group helped Highland Renewal replace a bridge at Tireragan nature reserve and teamed up with local volunteers on a large-scale beachclean.  Great effort everyone!

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While the Thistle Camp were working on Staffa we had the expert help of Nan Morris from our path repair team, and we also had a visit from the structural engineer.  This is required to help us monitor and plan for future repair or replacement work of all of our built infrastructure that helps people access the island, for example the pier, ladders and handrails.

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The following week I headed over to Mar Lodge estate in Aberdeenshire for some valuable catch-up time with colleagues and to see how various land management projects there are progressing.  Woodland restoration is coming on very well.  On the way I dropped off Kate for a couple of days experience of working in mountain habitats at NTS Ben Lawers where she was well looked after by the team there.  A long way to travel but our early start was rewarded with a spectacular sunrise.

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Kate’s last day was spent finishing off a plant survey on the Ross, along with local volunteer Peter Upton.  Wishing Kate all the best as she moves onto pastures new.

Our final survey of the season involved walking the coast of the Ardmeanach peninsula on our annual goat count which helps us work out grazing levels.  100 goats were happily spread around the beach boulders sunbathing!  What a hard life!

Last week I escorted a few cruise ship passengers around the coastal path at Burg on a perfectly clear sunny day and we spotted some pure white harebells.

Bunessan afterschool nature club has now restarted – our first event this autumn was a local walk finding plants which had animals in their names – how many can you think of?

Enjoy your autumn!

Emily