June

It's somehow June already! Been busy on Oronsay. 

I've been surveying for wader chicks the last couple of months, lapwing chick pictured. It has been a very strange spring, feels like winter more often than not and I suspect the breeding birds will have suffered as a result.

Skylark nest in the grass.

Marsh fritillary on the wing last week.

We had a trip out to seal island which is just off the end of Oronsay to the south west. There is a wreck somewhere offshore and this pottery was its cargo. The broken china washes up along the southern beaches.

Isle of Colonsay

Been a very bust couple of weeks with lambing and calving on Oronsay but we managed to squeeze in some time to check out a few sites on Colonsay.

Carlsberg don't do survey sites....

Not a bad office is it?

Photo: Luke Wake

Corncrake

The corncrake are back. Lots of calling males this week, had a few very good views too!

First calf

The bunting are out

Up to four snow buntings have been on Oronsay the last few weeks. I managed to get these close ups the other week of two picking through old silage.

There are signs that spring could be just around the corner on the island. Skylarks have started building in number the last week. I even saw some singing and displaying earlier in the week when the sun was out. A couple of gales have up an end to it for now.

Sunrise on a rare calm weather day. This is the view from my kitchen window. Looking towards Jura and Islay. The paps of Jura have still got loads of snow/hail over them.

Peregrine falcon over territory.

The exciting visitor this past week has been this juvenile Iceland gull. Really surprised that this is the first of the year considering the Northerlies and Westerlies we've been having. A real treat to see one of these white winged Arctic breeders on the island.

Great Northern divers have also been pushed closed to shore with the winds. Will start coming into breeding plumage soon. I've noticed a few black guillemots close in as well, already in summer plumage.

Meanwhile, I quite like the winter nights......

Lutra lutra

Last weekend we took part in the beached bird survey. This meant walking at coastline of Oronsay searching for any seabirds that had washed ashore. The survey is coordinated across the UK on the same dates to help build up a picture of seabird casualties and any underlying causes such as oil spills etc.

Our search of Oronsay turned up no beached seabirds, which is fantastic and a wonderful contrast to last year when we found several birds ashore.

While surveying the East coast of Oronsay I was fortunate enough to have a female otter and her young cub emerge from the sand dunes not 10 meters away from me.

 

The mother went into the shallows and called the pup out. After it went into the water they then foraged around the rocks for 20 minutes or so. I watched from the dunes before leaving them to it.

Really quite the privilege. I spent a lot of time last winter on Oronsay trying to get good views of otters. I've been having better success this year, sheer determination and spending more time out and about is the key. And with sights like this, absolutely worth it.

History in my hands

I found something very special last weekend. A piece of hand worked flint. Probably not seen by human eyes for thousands of years. This archaeological treasure is likely to be from the Mesolithic period. Mesolithic hunters are believed to have started arriving to the area here around 7500BC. Flint doesn't occur naturally on Oronsay so this piece would have likely been traded. 

  

Some preliminary research has revealed that this large flint was likely a scraper, used for working animal hides and other materials. I found it on the high water line down on the strand. Following the storms we've been having it perhaps came loose from somewhere on the strand and washed ashore. The strand would have been an area used by the people here without doubt for foraging for shellfish and molluscs in between the tides.

Signs of Mesolithic man are all around us on Oronsay.  The middens here rank only 2nd in Britain for  the amount of information added to our  understanding of early post-glacial settlement. Carbon dating of the shell middens has shown that Oronsay was inhabited for at the very least 700 years between 4100BC and 3400BC.

The photo above shows one of the middens on Oronsay. One of the best examples in the whole of Europe. The team here fenced off the middens on the island in order to preserve and protect them. We've opened the middens up to the cattle for a couple of weeks in order to graze them back a little and provide lots of dung for the chough to search through for tasty invertebrate larva!

The middens have yielded some fascinating artifacts that let us glimpse the Mesolithic world on Oronsay. While their bulk is made up of limpet shells and blown sand. The middens have also been found to contain bone pins, seal, otter, red deer, pig and dolphin remains. The diet was evidently very varied. Avian species featured heavily on the menu too, cormorant, shag, goose, shelduck, water rail, ringed plover, tern, gull, razorbill, guillemot, gannet and red-breasted merganser bones have all been excavated from the middens.  

Perhaps one of the most interesting finds for a budding ornithology fan are the bones of Great auk found in the middens. The now extinct species was eaten here on Oronsay which is just amazing to think of now. It is likely to therefore have been found breeding on Oronsay or on the surrounding coast. 

Oronsay is a true window into our history and so many chapters can be seen in just a short walk around the island. The weight of heritage here can really be seen and I'm so fortunate to be living on such an archaeological gem.

Some photos from January

We saw some really extreme weather in January. It felt like back to back gales for a majority of the month. We've had some snows and hard frosts too which is fairly unusual for Oronsay.

While I really enjoy the stormy weather, it's really rubbish for the stock. 

I had a wander around the priory on one of the day where we had a little blue sky. It's really quite the picture in the right light.

I've also been exploring some of the historical Viking sites in more detail the last month. The photo below is of one of the Viking hut circles on the South end.

This would have been their view looking South,

A couple of cows we've had in due to eye complaints which required successive treatments. 

Barnacle geese from the kitchen window.

Sea-bean Saturday

I finally found a sea-bean!

Whenever I walk the beaches on Oronsay, I keep my eye out for sea-beans. Also known as drift-seeds, sea-beans are seeds or fruits that have been carried out to sea after falling from trees or vines which grow along tropical shores. I love imagining where this one could have come across the ocean from. Somewhere a lot warmer that's for sure. Jamaica perhaps? Sea-beans often float due to an internal air pocket within the seed. So pleased to finally find one!

Otter

Three chough going bananas this afternoon announced the presence of this otter.

I've spent a lot of time on Oronsay trying to spot otters so views like this are really awesome - Managed to get this short video. Had the dogs with me so was trying to make sure they didn't disturb it.

"Aw please let me chase it"

These three chough were less than impressed with the otter and were mobbing it ferociously from the wall. 

The otter started going into rabbit warrens after it went over the hill. This surprises a lot of people, but otters will often hunt on land. I've seen them hunting around rabbit warrens a couple of times in the past month, very easy meal.