The Loch Gruinart bloggers have been down one team player for long enough; with Warden Mary having to contend with frequent and what is clearly photoshopped images from the Oa (decent otter photos from Dave?! An eagle only metres away from Mark?!) I have valiantly stepped in to even out the playing field...
After a winter season off the island frolicking with reindeer in the Cairngorms and trying to out-fox mink in Aberfoyle I have retured back to the island for the summer as the Community Information and Tourism Officer. Some may say this is a made up and quite frankly overlong job title, but with such a long title comes a long list of responsibilities, inlcuding leading the twice-weekly guided walks, planning and running events, manning the visitors centre here at Gruinart, cleaning toilets (although Mary seems to enjoy this a fair amount), liaising with local groups, and helping with the many, many surveys we do to monitor how our wildlife is doing (incidently, really well).
Smaull Warden Louise apparently loves bogs
With the start of the summer season comes the annual deer count on the Loch Gruinart reserve; at 1700ha our reserve will invariably be grazed by the numerous red and roe deer found on the island. As we have a careful management plan involving the large swathes of heather moorland and bog on the reserve the larger red deer need to be monitored to ensure the numbers are large enough to create a diversity in sward height of the heather, but low enough that overgrazing does not become an issue. Our moorlands are home to a huge variety of species, but most impressive is the hen harrier; a bird that thrives here on Islay. Their preference for taller heather for nesting, and shorter heather for hunting means there is a very delicate balance. The count involves all staff - including day release from the Oa for a lucky 1 - each being given a map, a radio, a pair of wellies and many, many snacks in order to cover the gruelling several hours of walking/crawling through knee deep bog or knee high heather, and recording any deer seen. At the end of a long and fairly smelly day the results were tallied and 100 red deer were counted; exactly the number needed to manage our moorland. That combined with an impressive 7 hen harriers seen, including pairs, means a very successful result.
Female hen harrier - I'm defintely cheating here as this was not taken at Loch Gruinart...