As the wintering geese headed north in spring, Heulwen, Gill and Ian Bullock went south to Ramsay Island, an RSPB nature reserve off the Welsh coast.
Sorry as they were to leave this island, I was tremendously excited to be able to fulfil a long held aim and return to the Hebrides, to Coll in particular where I first came 25 years ago on a family holiday. Although just a wee boy at the time, I well remember hearing corncrakes around Breachacha, seeing fluffy yellow goslings on the Mill lochs, and leaping into the sandy bowl.
Coll is exceeding my expectations probably because, although I've worked in many of the best wildlife areas in Scotland, I had previously spent 4 years working in south east England and saw how wildlife has been pushed into ever diminishing `islands' of nature reserves and the countryside sanitised. The wealth of wildlife on Coll is rarely paralleled nowadays in the UK.
With only just enough time to settle in and meet all my new neighbours, the corncrakes arrived back from Southern Africa. When Spring is here in this elemental place of sky and sea, you are cradled in the lap of God. If you haven't stood by a Hebridean hayfield at midnight with a bright moon, snipe drumming all around, peewits wailing, cows cudding and there - in an overgrown ditch a corncrake craking ... well, you should.
The numbers of corncrake in the reserve have increased to 13 `singing' males while elsewhere on Coll the numbers fell slightly to 7: 20 in total. In 1991 there were 6 on the reserve area, 10 in 1992 and then 13 in 1993. This very encouraging trend is set against a background of continuing and rapid international decline. Over the last 10 years, numbers of corncrakes in Orkney and Shetland have declined by over 90%, by 80% in Ireland, and by 50% in France. Only Coll, Tiree and Lewis buck the trend with either stable numbers or a very small increase.
So what - from the corncrake's point of view - is different between Tiree and Orkney, and between the RSPB reserve and the rest of Coll?
On Tiree, hay and silage is traditionally cut in late July or August when most corncrakes have finished nesting. In Orkney, Ireland and elsewhere, there has been a rapid change to re-seeding meadows which can be cut for silage in May or June. This quickly exterminates corncrakes and most other wildlife.
On the reserve, numbers are interesting because of small changes to the farming system that the RSPB is making, based on an understanding of the ecology of the corncrake and the requirements of agriculture. In 1993 a research biologist spent several weeks with me on the reserve attaching tiny radio transmitters to a sample of both male and female cornerakes. This allowed me a fantastic insight into the private life of a bird that is very rarely seen. With the radio transmitters I could work out exactly what areas they used for feeding, singing, nesting, raising chicks, moulting, and also the timing and success of breeding. I expect I looked pretty daft creeping through the long grass, waving an aerial and wearing headphones but it is research such as this that allows the RSPB to base its land management on a good scientific footing.
There are several factors that influence corncrakes. It is in these areas that work on the RSPB reserve has brought about a doubling of corncrakes in 3 years.
1. When corncrakes arrive in late April/early May they need a place to hide, usually in iris, reeds, cow parsley, nettles or overgrown gardens. Elsewhere the grass is too short.
The RSPB has been fencing off small field corners and margins where this long vegetation is likely to occur. Fencing allows the grazing to be controlled: too much and the vegetation will not be long enough; too little and the vegetation may become too rank.
2. Meadows with long grass are where corncrakes eventually spend most of their time, so the RSPB is increasing the acreage of meadows on the reserve. This provides a welcome increase in the amount of hay and silage available for winter feeding. In some of the more rocky fields the standing hay crop can be grazed off in autumn, as often happens on Tiree.
3. When fields are cut it is very important to cut late (after 1st. August.) and to cut in a `friendly' way (from the centre out, or strips). One female I was following hatched her chicks on 28th. July. This is normal for cornerakes to hatch so late and if the RSPB hadn't specified a late cutting date her eggs and probably herself would have been killed. Even after the 1st. August, if the field had been mown in towards the centre, her small chicks would have been herded into an ever diminishing island of grass and finally killed. (In 1994, another research biologist will join me for most of the summer to further hone our understanding of corncrakc ecology using radio tracking. The more we understand the better we can target our habitat management.)
As in previous years, a joint venture between Scottish Natural Heritage/ Scottish Crofters Union/ RSPB provided grants of up to £25 per acre to farmers with corncrakes who were prepared to cut their hay/ silage after 1st. August and/or cut in a `friendly' way. The grant scheme puts tens of thousands of pounds into farmers' and crofters' pockets throughout the islands and all Coll farmers with corncrakes, bar one, benefitted by joining the scheme (as did their corncrakes).
The financial benefits to islanders from corncrakes will further increase in 1994 as Coll becomes part of the Argyll Islands Environmentally Sensitive Area. Grants will become available from the Department of Agriculture for many types of environmentally sensitive farming, corncrakes being a prime target for high levels of grant aid. I hope that farmers interested in maximising their income will be able to benefit from the research and types of management carried out on the reserve. It is widely anticipated that as agricultural production subsidies are removed on the way to a freer market, grants will remain for the environmentally beneficial aspects of traditional farming, that also sustains rural communities.
Many visitors to the island B&Bs came specifically to see corncrakes and the nature reserve and although Coll will never be swamped with tourists its position on the map is being marked. A BBC film unit is already thinking about a natural history program featuring Coll and its corncrakes for 1994.
Thankfully, life on the RSPB reserve is not all corncrakes. Their song may be repetitive but that's nothing compared to the 'corncrake pie' jokes! There are three other areas of wildlife interest, both on and off the reserve, that are of national, even international importance. These are the wildflowers, the waders and the geese.
The sheer quantity, diversity and beauty of the Coll flora is exquisite. Again, this is a result of the traditional low intensity farming that has gone on for centuries. You don't find 12 species of orchid in an Essex cereal field but you can in some Coll fields. On the reserve, we have mapped to a very detailed scale all the different vegetation types. In discussions with professional botanists we have worked out the best regime to maintain and where possible to enhance this interest. In practice this usually means grazing an area fairly heavily in autumn and winter and then removing stock from the best areas for several weeks in spring or early summer to allow the plants to flower and set seed.
Much the same small adjustment to the farming regime is needed to benefit the amazing concentrations of breeding waders, such as snipe, peewits and redshank. These birds, which should be relatively common, are declining alarmingly rapidly on mainland Britain; by up to 50% in the last 10 years, because of drainage and general agricultural `improvements' (a familiar story by now). One little lochan/swamp near Ben Feall had more redshank nesting than in the whole of inland Wales and the results of some scientific research done on Coll and Tirce conclude "Densities of breedng waders of such magnitude and maintained over such areas are outstanding in European and world terms. Their continued conservation is of great importance."
As well as removing grazing during the nesting period when eggs are vulnerable to trampling, the other positive step to take is to control water levels. Many of the small machair lochans have ancient drains which don't work well enough to stop winter flooding but they do remove surface water in drier spring weather. Effectively, there areas which are brilliant for wildlife are destroyed but never so well drained as to make them any use for agriculture. By controlling water levels, the damp conditions vital to waders and their chicks in spring can be maintained over the necessary small areas.
Geese tend to be lumped together but Coll has a wide variety of species present such as white-fronted, barnacle, greylag, brent, canada, pink-footed and snow geese. The white-fronts and barnacles both breed in Greenland and the whole of their world population winters on the British and Irish west coasts. Counts in Jan. 1994 show 800 white-fronts and 550 barnacles on Coll. This is a large proportion of the whole world population and is internationally inportant for both species, particularly the white-fronts which are the third rarest goose in the world (the Hawaiian goose and the Aleutian goose being the other two). Both species do well on Coll and the main benefit they additionally get on the reserve is in not being chased off.
The scenery and wildlife of Coll is very special. Enjoy it.