Seal Pup

The grey seal pup seemed intrigued but not frightened by the flock of starlings that descended all around him on the high tide-line. The birds came to feed on kelp-fly larvae in the seaweed. The pup was stranded, as grey seals can't swim until they're a month old.
 I made this monoprint in the winter after visiting the seal breeding-colony on Oronsay in October. The island is a Site of Special Scientific Interest for this seal (as well as chough and corncrake), and up to 1000 pups are born here each season. Unlike the smaller common seal which feeds in shallow water around the coast, satellite tagging of grey seals from Oronsay has shown that they travel as far as Ireland and to the edge of the continental shelf for food.

Winter Choughs

The crow family are renowned for their intelligence and adaptability, but are often a bit of a disappointment when it comes to outward appearances. Ravens and rooks are swathed in black, and the most jackdaws or hoodie crows can offer is a bit of grey to compliment their gothic look. But there is one bird who can salvage the sartorial reputation of the Corvids. Put your hands together ladies and gentlemen, for the chough. Like a showgirl with bright red lipstick and scarlet boots, the chough's appearance suggests a personality to outshine its drab cousins.




But as we all know, appearances can be deceptive. The chough has learned its lesson from Aesop, and doesn't let it's glamorous looks affect its behaviour. It knows the route to its success is hard work and diligence. Like commuters on the tube, the Oronsay choughs leave their winter roost each morning and follow the same flight path to the same patch of beach to dig for maggots in rotting seaweed. A flashy lifestyle it is not.
Despite enjoying a view from here as far as the Outer Isles, these Choughs are birds of narrow horizons. They teach their chicks where the best kelp washes up for kelp fly maggots and where the best cow pats fall for beetle larvae. They mate for life, and use the same nest site each year. I live only 20 miles due west of Oronsay, and never hear of choughs being seen on the mainland. In the last 200 years, with the decline of mixed farming, choughs have retreated to the islands. But thanks to the RSPB's agricultural work on Colonsay and Oronsay, they are slowing clawing their way back, and now have 13 breeding pairs here.
I imagine one day looking out of my window and seeing that graceful, lilting flight and hearing the elegant call of a pair of choughs - a reward for the perseverance of both birds and conservationists. And those red legs would give the local hoodies something to think about.

Location:Isle of Oronsay

Seabirds

In the summer I spent two days at the seabird cliffs of Colonsay. I met Ellie Owen and Tessa Cole, who were doing amazing research for the RSPB "FAME" project (Future of the Atlantic Marine Environment). I hope to return to this inspiring place next year to do some work for them, and also to do a residency for the Colonsay Spring Festival. I'll be running a couple of workshops for field drawing and print-making in May, based around the seabirds.

Waxwings

This is an modified excerpt and some pictures from an article I had published in Birdwatch Magazine in October this year.

"I live in a west-coast Scottish village, surrounded by ancient hill-top forts. When the Vikings harried these shores, locals must have lived in fear of raiders from the North. Last autumn we were visited again, and word spread quickly from house to house. My neighbour rang at first light and insisted that I come to her house. In the upstairs bedroom her guests, bleary-eyed, had been evicted from their beds. The room was lit by an orange glow as the flame-coloured autumnal leaves of the rowan tree outside almost touched the window. And in the tree, a flock of Waxwings - masked raiders, alert and wary, ready to pillage and plunder. The local Blackbird had realised too late the severity of the situation. In vain he tried to keep the intruders from his winter food-supply, but he was outnumbered. On the road below, mothers and children passed by on their way to school, unaware of the drama taking place above their heads. The Waxwings flew up, but returned again, fluttering, stretching, plucking, grabbing - tossing berries into the air before gulping them down. Soon, not a single berry remained. With a whirr of wings the flock was gone, leaving us all happy at the interruption of our domestic routines. All of us except, maybe, the Blackbird."

Summer meadows

I made a second visit to Oronsay in June. The RSPB have the agricutural tenancy of the island, and farm in such a way as to allow the native wildlife to thrive alongside the farmed animals. The natural grassland that is found around the outside of the island is Machair, made up of shell-sand thrown up from the shore. The cattle graze here in winter, but are shut out in spring to allow a rich variety of wildflowers to grow. The plants are as beautiful as their names - Ragged Robin, Lesser Butterfly Orchid, Yellow Rattle and Adder's Tongue Fern. The fields are mown every September to provide winter bedding for the cattle, and by removing the nutrients in this way, the land is kept from becoming too lush and overgrown.
It was lovely to lie on the dry ground and listen to the Bumble Bees humming between the Red Clover flowers. Because the meadow was so open I could get a great view of a male Skylark (below) which was displaying to a female on the ground. Normally derided as LBJ's, or Little Brown Jobs, I was close enough to see the bold patterning of his plumage.




In complete contrast to the Machair, the "in by" land around the farmhouse is allowed to grow up into an annual multistory grassland jungle. Plants layer one above another as they reach for the sky, fueled by a rich soil. Nettles, cow-parsley and hogweed jostle for space, and provide perfect cover for the shy Corncrake (below). These rare birds arrive from Africa in the Spring, and dive straight into the safety of the thick vegetation that has been grown for them. I sat for ages at the corner of the field, listening to a cacophony of rasping calls, as 7 male corncrakes each staked their claim to a patch of meadow. I often find that when I'm sitting still and drawing, wildlife eventually forgets I'm there. Eventually I was rewarded with a brief, tantalizing glimpse of this noisy bird.

Farming and wildlife

I spent a few days in Spring staying on an island farm managed by my friends Mike and Val. It's wonderful to see how much wildlife gathers around livestock, to feed on spilled grain and to nest in the farm out-buildings.


The rich grazing land also supports lots of insect food for the birds. And because there are always people working around the livestock, the wildlife becomes very tame. I sat watching and listening to the starlings displaying, as they ran through their repertoire of impersonations. There was the mew of buzzards, honk of greylag, piping of curlew, and the alarm call of a blackbird, all pouring from the beak of one bird.


The livestock affects the landscape directly too. The cattle poach up the marshy ground, increasing the variety of dry and wet areas. Lapwings nest among these hummocks, beautifully camouflaged, the incubating bird like one more mossy mound.


I tried to travel all around the island on my visit, but was constantly drawn back to the farm-buildings by the inspiring mixture of wildlife, domestic animals and human activity.

Black-tailed Godwits

This spring I've been working out of doors on a small island near to home. I was sitting in a borrowed Landrover, out of the wind, painting a nesting Lapwing. The birds are used to the vehicle, which made a perfect, movable hide. Despite my luxuriously appointed accommodation, my back was starting to ache and my feet to grow cold, so I decided to pack up and head for breakfast. As I put away my paints, I checked the shallow pool behind me and saw that a flock of Black-tailed Godwits had arrived. It's a cure I'd recommend to anyone - my aches and pains vanished. I can't remember seeing these waders before - and I'm sure I wouldn't have forgotten, as they are so spectacular. They seem both muscular and graceful, both comical and elegant with their long legs and up-turned bills.
Even more surprising, was that one of the birds was wearing colour-rings. This in itself is not unusual as these birds are the subject of a long-term project studying their migration between Africa, Ireland and Iceland (see www.scoiliosaefnaofa.com/Godwit.htm). The strangest bit was that my Mum had just been to Portugal to help monitor and put rings on birds that were passing through the wetlands there. I wonder if this bird was one of those that they saw, now refueling in Scotland before pushing north again. I've sent off details of the colour-rings, and hope to find out soon.