I arrived on Oronsay at the beginning of December for a 3 month stint as a voluntary warden. I am a mature Environmental Science undergraduate in my final year and I applied to come to Oronsay to gain valuable practical experience with a wildlife conservation...

Each month over the winter we do an all island goose count, well everywhere we can see from the road in a day. We are counting Greylag, Greenland White-fronted and Barnacle Geese and while looking through a telescope we are on the lookout for any readable...

Everyone at RSPB Islay is deeply saddened by the sudden death of Carl Reavey, of Bruichladdich distillery. Carl worked with us developing our partnership with The Botanist Foundation, but his contribution to so many facets of Islay life is difficult to...

So the Islay twite project is up and running. Earlier this month we managed to catch and colour ring 87 of the Oa's winter twite flock. For a number of years, The Oa reserve has attracted a large wintering flock to the specially grown wild bird...

Absolutely disgusting weather out here on Islay today, so I took pity on Angharad (our residential volunteer) and unlocked the office door to let her in out of the cold for an hour or so. Long enough to write this splendid account of her time with us...

Another update on some activities over the last month. With all the wet and windy weather in recent times, the track around the office and yard area where we drive the vehicles had become a mud sludge area. So with shovels in hand, we dug out all the...

Last winter saw a record flock of twite using our purpose grown crops on The Oa reserve. Over 1000 birds had arrived by mid November, feasting on the seed pods of fodder radish and creating an amazing spectacle. See January's blog http:/...

Here is an update for activities that have occurred over the last month. Sadly there was an outbreak of Japanese knotweed in one of the fields near a stream, as a result we had to remove it. We tried a method called stem injection, where each stem...

After spending a whole night and day travelling up from Birmingham by coach, I arrived at the Isle of Coll. I was greeted and shown around the newest volunteer accommodation I had ever seen. That night I was greeted by a great rainfall on the roof and...

I arrived on Coll on the 31 st of July, and so today is the start of my 5 th week. So far I’ve seen white sand beaches, blue sea, blooming machair, a couple of birds for my life list and the odd bit of ragwort, of course... I will start by...

They say the sun shines on the righteous. In which case someone in the farm team at Loch Gruinart has been a very naughty boy, as it's done very little except rain since silage cutting began over a week ago. A brutal combination of mechanical...

This fabulous Musk beetle (Aromia moschata) was lurking in the willow scrub that lines the Loch Gruinart Moorland Trail earlier this week. At nearly an inch long, with antennae the same length again, it stood out a mile, so it was a surprise to find this...

Chuffed - the latest in chough news and shenanigans: This week's news is that confusion reigns. There is a widely accepted theory that monitoring a species leads to greater understanding and insight. Unfortunately, our chough do not appear to have...

Chuffed - the latest in chough news and shenanigans: Regrettably this week's update isn't all good news. We are continuing to try and keep track of our chough families to see how the young birds are doing, so were happy that during the guided...

We allowed the Swallows into the Information Room on the reserve and even supplied them with a shelf to build a nest to prevent muck going onto the info panels. As you can see they took to this and built a nest and have already raise 5 young. ...

Chuffed - the latest in chough news and shenanigans: Last Friday the final pair of nesting chough on the reserve fledged two chicks. In summary, this means three pairs have fledged eight chicks in total on the reserve, the most successful they have...

Here's a fresh perspective on Inner Hebridean life - in all its soggy glory - from Liz, our colleague from The Lodge. Many thanks to her for this, and for all her hard work and enthusiasm over the past month. Sabbatical Blog – Islay and Oronsay...

Chuffed - the latest in chough news and shenanigans: So shortly after last week's blog, Dave was out doing some monitoring on another pair of chough which have nested on the reserve. After an anxious couple of hours wait with no sign of them, he...

Breaking News: Without doubt the highlight of the week has been seeing four fledged chough on the wing. It is particularly special as this is the first time this pair have fledged young, having failed at egg stage last year. We will be continuing to...

The tiny tidal island of Oronsay sits snugly beside its larger neighbour Colonsay just off the west coast of Scotland. Both are part of the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands that runs from Skye in the north to Islay in the south. At just over two...

A weekly picture from The Oa reserve on Islay: Visitors to The Oa reserve generally know to look for golden eagle, chough and hen harrier, but it is easy to overlook the extensive coastal habitat used by variety of coastal and sea birds. Oystercatchers...

A weekly picture from The Oa reserve on Islay: Liz from the Lodge joined us this week to help out on the Islay reserves for the next few weeks. Thursday was her first day at The Oa and we gave her the customary welcome: lashings of rain, a shovel...

May 22: Arrival at the reserve in the morning; showed around reserve in Polaris off road vehicle, weather a bit damp and misty but wind not too strong so no problems standing up on the Moorland! May 23: AM – Stock count in dunes next...

A weekly picture from The Oa reserve on Islay: This weeks picture is to showcase an important member of our reserve team: Yep, this little lamb is one of the latest additions to our special conservation grazing task force. The cattle and sheep...

With a number of incidents involving drone users on our Islay reserves occurring over the past few weeks, it seems like a good time for our very own Louise to lay down the law highlight some good practice concerning the use of these latest fads exciting...