Some of our Highland heifers gathered around one of the many ruined houses and steadings found around The Oa peninsula. Much of the human history of The Oa is a story of hardship and disaster, even before the rspb got involved. Boom boom. In the early part of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 people recorded as living on The Oa. This number was drastically reduced by the mass emigration of the mid to latter parts of the 1800's, and is now somewhere around 50, I'd guess. Many of the stone fanks and dykes and field systems from these earlier periods can still be seen quite clearly around the reserve.