Bird Watching

What is so special about bird-watching on Coll, you may ask, when the island actually lacks many of the spectacular rarities which inhabit other Hebridean haunts? Maybe it's just as well though, because they would attract more 'Twitchers' - a species of Homo Sapiens whose energies and wallets have no boundaries in the quest to tick another rare exotic species from their list! But Coll offers wild country, tranquillity, habitats that are virtually unchanged by land-use and whether it's oyster catchers or ringed plover on the foreshore, lapwing or snipe on the marshes, red-throated divers on the lochans, or buzzards and ravens on the tops, the birds form a distinctive part of the island's environment. I've always advocated sitting around, letting the birds come to me rather than searching them out, and on a small island like Coll, you can get the best of both worlds, with land and sea birds in the same field of view.

Because Coll lacks high sea-cliffs, breeding sea-birds are absent in any number, fulmar and black guillemots being the main exceptions. However, with the Treshnish, Eigg, Rhum and Canna nearby, we get the spin-off- such as guillemots, razorbills and wandering gannets. Perhaps most spectacular is the constant movement of Manx Shearwater just offshore, flighting to and from their breeding grounds on Rhum where more than 10,000 pairs breed. It's well worth the excuse of a fishing trip simply to view these birds, though on a stormy night they fly close to the shoreline on each side of the island.

Birds of prey have always been my passion and on Coll the elusive merlin is widely distributed, though kestrels and buzzards are perhaps more easily spotted. Peregrines are sometimes seen and I'm told sea-eagles occasionally visit - not surprising, when Rhum is only a few flaps away. Last year we saw an eagle, appropriately near Meall na lolaire, but it was too far away to tell whether it was Golden, Sea or whatever. It was certainly big!

Each year on Coll has brought something different. So far we have recorded eighty-three different species on our brief summer holidays, but my fondest memories are always of divers. Red Throats abound and for me there are few pleasures to beat a night's fishing on one of the hill lochs, with the trout rising, and the Divers display flighting over the hill, casting black silhouettes on a fading sky, their eerie calls echoing in the still night.

R.McM