Yesterday saw staff and volunteers welcoming visitors to our amazing reserve on the Oa, in glorious weather – yes really! The event was to see how many different species could be found in this spectacular place, with volunteers stationed around the area with telescopes, binoculars and identification keys, and families returning to us with records and photos of what they’d seen. It’s surprising just how many species can be found in even a short distance, with 24 species of wildflower found just around the car park! These included Lesser Spearwort, Selfheal, Red and White Clover, Common Spotted Orchid, Tormentil and Bog Asphodel to name but a few. Bog Asphodel is particularly beautiful and apparently used to be used by Lancashire maidens who used its yellow dye to colour their hair! It also grows at our Loch Gruinart reserve up along the Moorland Trail, and I’ve even seen one at the bottom of the Woodland Trail there! Here’s a photo of one – keep a look out for it in autumn too when it turns a deep orange colour.
Fantastic to see so many beautiful wildflowers on Islay, especially as wildflowers in the UK have declined by 97% since the second World War – a figure I still find staggering.
As well as wildflowers we recorded birds and insects too, and on the bird-front were happy to see two Golden Eagles during the day. We also identified 19 different species of moth from our overnight moth-trap, including the stunning Garden Tiger moth and others like Burnished Brass, Beautiful Golden Y, Lovers Knot, Drinker and Snout – I just love moth names! I highly recommend looking these moths up because they really are amazing-looking. But here’s a photo of just some of the Garden Tiger moth that we found (did you know it has a stunted proboscis and doesn’t feed? Amazing.)
So thanks to all those people who helped us with recording the wildlife to be found on the Oa, and here’s a photo of one of the mammals that we saw! And thanks Tristan for the photos ;-)