Barley plant exhibiting 'tillering' - Rockside Farm

Tillering - where multiple shoots spring from a single seed - with the prospect of multiple ears...  Apparently farmers sometimes lightly graze young barley with sheep at the critical stage to encourage this.

Sowing barley at Octomore Farm last week

Barley harvest - Mark Unsworth

Mark took this shot of Neil MacLellan combining feed barley at Kentraw last week, before the weather closed in.  It has been several days now since it was dry enough to get machines on the land or have the grain dry enough to harvest. The deer, geese, rock doves and rooks are enjoying this, but it is a nerve wracking delay for the farmers.
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298 Whooper Swans on the Rhinns

I counted a total of 298 Whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) between Rockside and Sunderland Farms on the Rhinns this afternoon.  201 were in a big flock on the half-cut barley field at Sunderland (top photo) and 97 on stubble at Rockside.
Carl

Birds in the Barley Crop

Starlings and Rock Doves

Grey-lag geese.  Note the, probably feral, bird with a white neck.

There has been a large increase in the Grey-lag population in recent years.

The wild bird population is helping itself to a large proportion of the barley crop on Islay as the farmers wait for the right conditions to bring in the harvest.  Much of the barley is being grown for Bruichladdich Distillery.  Growing grain crops is always going to be a marginal, high-risk activity on Islay.  Seed cannot be sown until late in the spring because of the geese.  This means the crop ripens late and faces difficult weather - and these days even more geese...  Red deer are also doing significnat damage.  They come down at night to feed from the forestry plantations where they hide out during the day.
Carl

Puffer unloading barley - probably at Port Charlotte

This picture shows just how difficult even the most basic tasks used to be just a few years ago.  The puffer is evidently unable to get into the beach, which at Port Charlotte is quite rocky and difficult, particularly at high tide.  The bags of barley for the distillery would therefore have to be lifted out of the puffer into flit boats, rowed close inshore, and there lifted onto carts to be pulled up to the distillery by horses.  The time and labour involved is almost unimaginable by our modern standards.

The Shorefield Project - feeding in the snow

The Highlanders are being fed barley straw, which was baled earlier in the year after the grain had been harvested for Bruichladdich Distillery.  It is loaded onto the feed trailers using a telehandler.

The bale then has to be broken open and is soaked with molasses.  The Highlanders are happy with the low nutrient content of the barley straw, it provides the bulk to fill their stomachs, and the molasses adds the sweetness while also having a high calorific value.

The feed trailer is then towed up to the hill by James in h is shiny new Massey Ferguson.

The Highlanders come swiftly when called. 

They really do look magnificent in the snow, and give the impression of positively enjoying the cold weather, snug inside their thick coats.

Combining at Octomore

The combining of the barley has gone reasonably well.  It was rained off last night, but somehow they managed to miss the showers today - there was torrential rain at Uiskentuie this morning while they were combining at Octomore in glorious sunshine.  The rain and wind of the past week has resulted in some losses of yeild - but it could have been a lot worse.

There were clouds of birds to accompany the men and machinery.  Around a hundred pure Rock Doves and a large flock of Starlings were perhaps the most spectacular, but there were uncountable numbers of Meadow pipits and Skylarks rooting about in the straw - I watched them diving right into the piles, presumably to catch insects.  About fifty Grey-lags went overhead at one point, probably sussing out their evening meal, and there were goodness knows how many Swallows hawking low over the stubble.

Carl

Kingfisher on the Sorn - image Fritz Haen

Mark from Octomore, who is working as a keeper on Islay Estates, reports that he has seen a Kingfisher on the River Sorn on two occasions during the past month.

'Scotland’s seabird numbers stabilising' - says SNH

A new report by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) reveals that Scotland’s seabird numbers appear to be levelling off, after a steady period of decline since 2000.

Between 1986 and 2009, the number of seabirds in Scotland has fluctuated, but declined overall by 28 percent. Now, a recent study confirms that overall numbers may have stabilised since 2007.

The decrease was likely due to food shortages, weather conditions and predation by non-native species such as brown rats and mink. A likely major cause was a drop in the number of small fish, such as sandeels, which are an important food source for many seabirds. These fish are probably being affected by rising sea temperatures because of climate change, as well as other factors.

A range of measures has been put in place to help combat pressures on the seabirds. Voluntary reduction in sandeel fisheries means that very little if any sandeel fishing now takes place within foraging range of kittiwakes, a species which, in recent years, has seen a particularly sharp drop in numbers. Intensive trapping and removal of non-native predators, such as the brown rat and the American mink, has also been carried out on various parts of the Scottish coastline and islands and is now starting to show some benefits, with terns recolonising some areas.

The Scottish Government’s recent Marine Bill also includes measures to improve marine nature conservation to safeguard and protect Scotland’s unique habitats.

Andy Douse, SNH ornithologist, said:  “The apparent halt of the decline since 2007 is encouraging. This may be an early sign that the various measures, and a lot of effort from many different people and groups across Scotland, have made a difference to seabird populations which are possibly beginning to stabilise. However, it is too early to say for sure that seabird numbers have stopped declining. Some sites in Scotland, particularly in the Northern Isles and some east coast colonies, have continued to decline. The data from the next few years will help us to better understand the changes.

“Thanks to the huge effort from volunteers and professionals, we are now able to monitor seabird numbers much more effectively than in the past, and respond quickly when action is needed.”

Scotland’s seabirds are internationally important with around four million breeding seabirds of 24 species. The recent drop in numbers follows two decades of occasional years of poor breeding – but poor years have happened more often and with more severity since 2000.

Hen Harrier - James Deane

Many thanks to James and his partner Vanessa for sending us this most impressive shot of a male Hen harrier taken while on a working week at RSPB Loch Gruinart