If you've ever been to Islay, you'll know that things are different here. They just are. No-one really knows why. For example, it's well known that your mainland rainbows have at their end a big pot of gold and a small Irish fairy in a hat. Out here, you'll find an RSPB staff member whacking a bit of plastic with a big mallet. This is Amy, doing a bit of peatland restoration at The Oa reserve. The people farming this land through the centuries tried to improve it by draining it of water as best they could, and as a result, this area of the reserve has a large network of drainage ditches. Peat bog in good, wet, condition is valuable habitat for all manner of flora and fauna, from sphagnum mosses up to wading birds such as curlew, snipe and redshank. Amy is in the act of driving lengths of plastic sheeting into these drains, in order to stop water running off the bog at an artificially high rate.
And when it's finished, it looks like this.