The long and varied coastline of Coll provides food and shelter for many resident and visiting birds who in turn, provide great interest and enjoyment for the human birdwatching residents and visitors. Down at Port-na-Luing we have a large porch from which we watch and share the private lives of ringplovers, oyster catchers, sandpipers, wheatears, common gulls and arctic terns which all nest around the house.

Last summer we watched four ring plover eggs hatching out. The tiny chicks moved about a yard away within half-an-hour of hatching; for about forty-eight hours they remained close by and managed to fit under the wings of a parent bird at night. Then, having increased in size, the proud parents took them over the rocks out to the sand. We weren't there to see their early attempts at flying, but we did watch the progress of three wheatear fledglings. The parents were busy all day long carrying food to the old rabbit-hole where the nest was. Then three young appeared. at first just hopping round the entrance, but soon going further and, with great flapping of wings, getting bolder. The fat baby was always on the look out for his parents' return with food and therefore slower than the thinner ones, but in two days all were flying quite well and off they went.