Week 6, as per the previous week, began with some wet and wild weather. Clearly the hope that Novembers’ weather would remain identical to balmy October was a tad hopeful. One of the first tasks for the week was to get the flail back into action. As mentioned, the huge amount of cut vegetation had jammed the flail and hence over-heated the V-twins drive belt, quickly snapping it. The lower the flail, the lower the flails’ roller and therefore the more difficult to evict cut grass from the flail itself. I duly removed the belt cover and got to work dismantling the tensioning assembly. It was just a case of stripping all remains of the old belt and installing replacements. Task complete, I put the flail back together again and tested it in an adjacent compartment, all good.
With the weather looking decidedly suspect all week (apart from Tuesday), David and I started making plans for a ‘Bug Hotel’ to be built in front of the RSPB visitor information room. We spent a good while checking designs online, looking for what may be most suitable. It quickly became clear that we needed to keep the length to sub 2m and the width to around 30-40cm due to vehicle access to the property. We would also need the height to vary on a sloping plane, to follow the contour of the disabled access ramp. It wasn’t necessarily going to be the most straightforward build. Our plan was to use a couple of sheets of the metal grid that we’d previously stripped during the barn clearance. This we would attach to upright joists in order to hold timber and assorted ‘bug’ material in place.
With a day of fine weather we took the opportunity to carry out RSPB Colls’ second Autumn-Winter Goose count. We traced an identical route around the island as per the previous count and were expectant of a good number more Greenland White-Fronts. Following the track and road through Ballyhaugh we didn’t actually spot a single Goose until arrival at Cliad. The usual small gaggles of Greylags became evident though we managed to note a decent flock of around 50 White-Fronts on Loch Cliad. Regrettably we were looking directly East into the sun and the distance made it impossible to age them. We continued our route North through Grishipoll and Gallanach, counting more Greylags and a few White-fronts all the way to the East end. Though there had previously been White-Fronts here, today it was relatively quiet, only twittering Stonechats and calling Buzzards to keep us company.
More Greylags were spotted driving East to Arinagour, where we stumbled across another 50 odd White-Fronts, just before the community centre. Though at one point they became spooked, they re-settled and we were able to age them. We also took the time to climb to a high vantage point to double check that they weren’t the same flock as at Cliad, but luckily they were still there when we checked. Being the narrowest part of Coll, a high vantage offers a view almost from the West to the East coast (across the loch). Great views from every part of Coll!
Accessing compartments close to Garden House, we noted the usual flock of Barnacle Geese was highly fragmented amongst fields South of Loch Breachacha. This was no doubt going to make them very difficult to count! This did indeed prove to be correct as we encountered small~ish individual flocks, frequently taking to flight. This could have been due to the White-Tailed Eagle that we saw from a distance a short while later!
Our final selection of both Greylags and White-Fronts were counted from Lonban and then in front of RSPB HQ at Totronald, where numbers of White-Fronts were quite high. Unfortunately, a vehicle put a huge number into the air at just the wrong point, enforcing a number of re-counts to make sure totals were correct. Fortunately we were at least able to age a reasonable number of juveniles, though the fading light kept many of the Geese sitting, with heads tucked into wings, making it impossible. Totals for the day were 447 Greylag and almost three times as many White-Fronts as previous, counted at 267 (18.1% juvenile – of those we could age). Barnacle Geese were lower at 742, though we suspected the number much higher due to their scattered nature today.
The remainder of the week was devoted to the completion of the bug hotel. The weather was indeed pretty awful, torrential rain showers being the order of the day. We had a number of old straining posts (larger fencing posts used to take the strain of the tensioned wires) that still had varying amounts of wire attached. I spent a good while stripping both plain and barbed wire in order to provide logs that could be used in the hotel which Ben then cut into 30cm sections.
David and I had all the pieces in place and began creation of the hotel. We quickly encountered difficulties due to the amount of rock (perhaps from an old dry stone wall) that inhibited us from knocking supporting posts into the ground. We were forced to evict large quantities before we could even make progress! With posts in, we cut, measured and shaped all necessary timber, eventually attaching the wire grid, bolt cutting it to size. We installed a roof, filled the open sides with rock and began ‘occupying’ the hotel with material. This consisted of the softwood Pine strainers (pre-drilling many holes for an assortment of insects), a large variety of wooden post sections (Larch & Pine), rotting wood and bark, pre-cut Sycamore branches, Fennel, Reed, Canary grass, and anything else suitable. It really was taking shape and we planned to add material over the next couple of weeks to complete it prior to my departure.
James Duncan