The year seemed to start with an unusually mild winter: grass was springing up even in December and January. By late January, winter started to take hold: things got worse in February and March, the latter a month of almost unmitigated rain and gales. However, the winter was not without its wildlife interest; there was an American Golden Plover on the RSPB Reserve (a first for Argyll) and in Feall Bay a record flock of 125 Long-tailed Ducks, a lovely seaduck which breeds in the Arctic tundra of northern Greenland. Even in December I saw a Minke Wale off Soa and up to 30 Harbour Porpoises close inshore.
On a Sunny morning in March there was a remarkable sighting; high up in one of the Crossapol dunes, a female Sand Lizard, one of the rarest lizards in the Country. In 1970, a dozen sand lizards were released here, far from their beleaguered home on the south coast heathlands. Apart from a sighting in 1971, this was the first surviving sand lizard to be seen here for over 20 years, (not to be confused with the Common Lizard which we see on stone walls and heath land in the more rocky parts of the island.)
Spring seemed a long time coming but the first Wheatear arrived back in the first week of April and the days got noticeably Sunnier (though the wind didn't let up!! Two small Tortoiseshell butterflies were out at Totronald on April 8th, - a considerable act of faith! It took until 16th. May for the winds to change. On that day they Swung round from strong westerlies to light southeasterlies, temperatures soared in the 205, and a remarkable spell of unbroken cloudless days started. The clear skies and light winds made May the warmest month of the year and turned the grasslands from wet swamps into billowing prairies. Just what the Corncrake ordered: the first males were calling on a still morning on May 9th. That night was still and moonlit with an aurora borealis and a dawn frost but corncrakes were calling all over the island and they didn't stop until August. Though they disappeared from some of the traditional sites this year, (like the Lodge and Clabach), overall island numbers were the same as last year, with 20 calling males, half of them on the RSPB reserve (phew!) Many farmers participated in the Corncrake scheme, which involved a cutting system from the centre of the field outwards. The best news is that broods were seen in several island fields but to my knowledge, not a single chick or adult was killed by mowing. The British and Irish population is down again this year; Coll and Tiree are the only sites where numbers have held steady in the last three years.
It was a good breeding season for many other birds, notably waders, (hardly surprising with such a wet early spring); Lapwing, Snipe and Redshank all reared broods successfully. The sequence of April flood to June drought seemed to suit them well. Another remarkable feature of the hot spring was an unusually high number of nesting Swallows on Coll. 2 or 3 pairs is normal but this year there must have been about 10 breeding pairs around the island. For the first time this year, Snow Geese also bred on Coll. There has been a flock which comes here each winter from Mull where Lady Rankin first released them but they clearly now behave as wild birds. Two separate pairs nested and successfully raised young. Terns did not fair so well; of a dozen or so colonies which I checked, all but two (and these on offshore skerries) failed. There was evidence of broken eggs and chewed wings in a least one deserted colony. I have no doubt that feral cats or rats are responsible. One small skerry 30 yards offshore which had breeding gulls on it last year was quite deserted this year and a careful inspection showed up rat droppings among the tussocks. The Brown Rat swims well and, once it discovers a colony of seabirds, it can wipe them out. One or two of the smaller islands of the Cairns of Coll have their soils absolutely riddled with blind burrows where stranded rats must have burrowed in vain for food once the seabirds were gone.
One of the finer features of the splendid spring was a remarkable influx of butterflies on the steady southerly winds. Butterflies are scarce enough this far north but just once in a while a strong southerly airflow can carry migrant butterflies from Cornwall to Cape Wrath in a matter of days. This is exactly what happened this year; on the same winds that sprang spring on us, Painted Ladies and Red Admirals appeared on May 14th. and 16th. These are both Mediterranean species and strong fliers. Even more remarkable was the arrival of Clouded Yellows, a beautiful butter-yellow butterfly, that breed in the clover fields of southern Europe. They appeared all over the island with fresh specimens appearing again in July, proving that some must have stayed to breed. Not since summer of 1947 has there been an influx of these butterflies to Coll; let us hope that it does not presage a winter like the infamous '47 freeze.
Plenty was happening at sea too. There were several sightings of Minke Whales throughout the summer; there seem to be at least 3 resident individuals around Coll, judgng by Richard Fairbairn's sightings. Several groups of doplhins were seen too, the most spectacular, a group of over 50 racing up the east side in June, leaping and cavorting and later seen off the Cairns of Coll. From the first week of June basking sharks appeared with the warmer water and up to 3 different individuals were about until late August, the largest at least 25 feet long which lolled about at the mouth of Arinagour Bay in June, feeding on cream of plankton soup. Most dramatic of all, Killer Whales were seen close inshore from early July, the last sighting was of a male and female 500 yards off the end of the pier in October, rolling, 'blowing' and standing out of the water on a clear sunny morning as the ferry steamed in; a reminder that the waters round Coll still have some of the richest fishing on the West Coast.
Several strange birds found their way to Coll this summer. The first was a superb adult Rose-coloured Starling that appeared at the Garden House in mid July and stayed for over a month. It was an incredible bright pink and glossy black and lived off scraps of black pudding and sandwiches until the local starlings had got over its outrageous plumage and allowed it to join them. This bird was seriously lost; the closest it breeds is Romania so it had taken the wrong ferry somewhere. In October, there were two more surprises; a period of turbulent winds brought in a Barred Warbler (breeds in eastern Europe and winters in Turkey) which was found in the Doctor's garden and two days later a Red-eyed Vireo found hopping among the sycamores at the Lodge, an American bird which migrates from Nova Scotia to South America at that time of year and somehow managed to get itself sucked clean across the Atlantic! Well, it's true, you never know who's going to turn up next on Coll..
