"Disaster:" Late last October the shores of Coll and Tiree presented a melancholy and desolate spectacle - thousands of sea birds dead and dying from a large spillage of thick crude black oil. Guillemots that had just come to feed off-shore from breeding colonies on the Treshnish and Rhum were worst affected, but hundreds of other birds - eider ducks, fulmars, gannets, and gulls - also suffered. The spillage, described by Peter Wormell of the Nature Conservancy Council as a "major disaster", will certainly further deplete the bird population of Coll and neighbouring isles. The source of the spillage was not known and the chances are that the tanker responsible for this outrage will get away with it, as usual. Doesn't it make you hopping mad?