It’s ages since I’ve had a chance to visit the western fringes of our islands. To cross to the Outer Hebrides – and find time to stand in a landscape shaped by the wind and the nature of this wild coast is a treasured memory. The machair; a coastal plain of wind-blown shell sand that supports a fabulous show of flowers and a tumult of wading birds calling and displaying over their breeding grounds. And in the taller vegetation – the oft heard but rarely seen corncrakes (pictured) rasp out their scientific name ‘crex, crex’.
My colleague, Martin Scott, has just sent me a link to a new website. It’s been set up as part of conservation project supported by the European Union LIFE+ scheme and involving a range of partners – here’s the link, have a look. I hadn’t realised quite how rare this beautiful landscape is – globally there is only 19,000ha and 70% of that is in western Scotland.