A small notice sent to a Hebridean newspaper by an American family trying to trace Continue reading
Tag Archives: Lewis
Castaway’s Taransay island for sale
The outstandingly beautiful island of Taransay, made famous as the setting for the television series Continue reading
Lewis and Islay goalposts in Hammerfest HS1000 marine turbine development
Norwegian energy company, Hammerfest, has announced a project to build ten Continue reading
BBC Alba’s December Festival
We’ve just had sight of the Gaelic TV channel, BBC Alba’s Continue reading
BBC ALBA gets 3 Scottish BAFTA nominations
When nominations to the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2009 were announced Continue reading
10th Outer Hebrides Bird Report available – with some shock discoveries
Can you imagine a young lamb head-butting a Golden Eagle in a struggle for survival? And would you have thought that a young Golden Eagle would run along the ground after rabbits? Well both these incidents actually happened and both were recorded – the lamb’s head-butt at Baile Ailean and the gound chase by the young Golden Eagle on the Sollas Machair.
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) have funded the production of the 10th Outer Hebrides Bird Report and these – and other, incidents feature in it, along with records of the islands’ resident birds and exotic visitors across all four seasons of the year.
The report charts some of the remarkable stories of migration which some species undertake to reach the Western isles in the course of their seasonal wanderings. Travellers to the islands included an arctic tern from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a woodcock from Russia, sandpipers and whooper swans from Iceland and storm petrels from County Mayo. One determined dunlin left the balmy shores of Setuba in Portugal to head for Stinky Bay (why?), Benbecula.
The report also notes the earliest ever sightings of snowy owls and the arrival of two colourful hoopoes from sub tropical climes.
Amongst the exceptional sightings was that of ‘Albert’, a 47 year old black-browed albatross, photographed by Dods Macfarlane of Ness, happily roosting in the middle of the vast gannet colony on the cliffs of Sula Sgeir. This far-travelled returning visitor from the Southern oceans caused such a stir that scores of twitchers from all over the UK headed out to the remote rock on chartered boats to log their own sighting.
Of wide interest, given the continuing standoff between crofters and natural heritage supporters over the reintroduction of the white-tailed Sea Eagle, is the detailed account in the report on this raptor’s diet. This picture had been put together from the prey contents of nests. These were shown to contain mainly the remains of seabirds – fulmars in particular, followed by mackerel, lumpsucker, dogfish, red deer, mountain hare, lamb, brown rat, raven, short-eared owl, great black backed gull, puffin, greylag goose and eider duck.
Brian Rabbitts (you couldn’t make it up), Coordinator of the Outer Hebrides Bird Group says: ‘We are delighted to see the efforts and input of so many people included in this publication which we hope will be of great interest to anyone with a general interest in the nature and wildlife of the Western Isles as well as those with a more specific interest in birds. We thank all contributors and hope people enjoy reading about the birds of the Western Isles and the very special environment we have here to support such a rich and varied bird population’.
Copies of the Outer Hebrides Bird Report are available from Brian Rabbitts (himself) at 6 Carinish, Isle of North Uist HS6 5HL. It costs £8.50 per copy, which includes postage and packaging. Please make cheques to Outer Hebrides Bird Report.
The photograph above is of a black-browed albatross – but unfortunately not of Albert – and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
Lighthouse Caledonia to get sweetener to stay in Lewis
As we reported recently, Lighthouse Caledonia, the aquaculture industry operator and Argyll employer with several salmon farms and processing plants, announced plans to close its plant at Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. This would lose the area around 100 jobs in fish processing.
Local MP, Angus MacNeil has since met with Lighthouse Caledonia’s management where he was told that the design of the factory did not lend itself to modern processing techniques but that the firm would be interested in building a new plant at Arnish on the island. And there’s always an ‘if’. In this case the condition is the offer of a state funding package to support the proposed initiative.
Mr McNeil says that Highlands and Islands Enterprise should help the company but notes that if public funding is forthcoming, Lighthouse Caledonia must be required to commit to long-term employment in the area.
The recent Argyll experience in Campbeltown has been salutary if far from unusual. Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer, announced that it was leaving that area at the end of a profitable public funding agreement and was off to the Isle of Wight on the back of a UK Government sweetener.
Lighthouse Caledonia to close salmon factory in Lewis
Lighthouse Caledonia, the salmon farming and processing company with a strong presence in Argyll, is causing great concern in the Isle of Lewis, with growing certainty that it plans to close its factory at Marybank. Employing around one hundred locals, the plant is expected to close in the new year
Western Isles MSP, Alasdair Allan, described it as one of the biggest private employers on the Western Isles. He has contacted th Enterprise Minister, Jim Mather, MSP for Argyll, asking him ‘to intervene to ensure that a future can be found for the company within the islands’. Mr Allan says: ‘I have also spoken to the managing director of Lighthouse Caledonia to emphasise the vital importance of his company to the islands and to offer to work together with the company and other agencies to ensure jobs stay here’.
Westminster MP for the area, Angus MacNeil, has also been in touch with Lighthouse Caledonia management and is hoping to meet with them at the earliest opportunity. He sees any closure as ‘impacting heavily’ not only on local jobs but on the stability of local companies with contracts dependent on Lighthouse Caledonia’s operations.
As we reported earlier in May this year, the company is losing 20% of its staff this year as part of a restructuring exercise. This will see about twenty jobs lost in Loch Fyne in Argyll. The Lewis closure would seem to be part of the same move.
Waste time but have fun – ship-tracking website
If you need a distraction – and, be warned, this can become addictive – try a fantastic ship-tracking website. (You’ll find the link under the ‘Fun’ section in our Links directory, above right.) There’s a drop down map of UK sea areas at the right hand side. Choose your poison. Ship types are colour coded, their movements show as ‘tails’ and you choose how often you want the area you’re looking at to refresh – two minutes is the quickest. All the regular ferries can be seen, tracking their way around the Clyde waterway and out to the islands. The offshore oil industry makes Aberdeen a busy place on the east coast.
We’ve wasted time in the last week watching a destroyer – the Daring – obviously on exercise and dashing about like a mad thing, twisting and turning at speed, around Kilbrannan Sound, the Kyles of Bute and down the east side of Arran (where she is just now. Ahem!).
We’ve trailed the Harvest Caroline, the first boat to come into Furnace pier (MId Argyl) for a very long time. We saw her the night she left, snaking round the corner of Mull from the Sound of Lorn into the Sound of Mull on her way back north to Loch Hourn. And we’ve found her up around the Isles of Lewis and Harris since.
We watched the World Explorer Yacht, Kiring, a vsitor to Inveraray earlier in the season, tour the Clyde Coasts and nip over to Bangor in Northern Ireland.
The site picks up SAR aircraft too, and we’ve seen one streak over the Holy Loch on its way over Mull, probably going out Barra-way.
Then there are the huge ‘self-discharging cargo’ boats (yes – moving the cursor over a boat shape brings up its details) making their way between Glensanda Quarry in Morvern on Loch :Linnhe and the North Channel.
Remember the Claymore? The once-upon-a-time CalMac ferry plying Argyll waters? The ferry that ran the late and lamented Campbeltown to Ballycastle route for the three-years of its existence? The one that was sold for for the route – for £1 – by the then enterprise authority to the Argyll and Antrim Steam Packet Company, set up to operate the service? The one that was sold on by that company reputedly for £1 million when, like Vestas in Campbeltown today, they came to the end of the period of time they’d contracted to serve? Yes, that’s her. We knew she been sold on to a company operating her in the pacific but she came up out of the blue on this site. She’s running the ferry route between Gills Bay near Thurso out to St Margaret Hope in the Orkney islands.
Ayway – you get the picture. Hard to know when to stop.
The service is run by amateurs, same style as ham radio buffs. They each track a sea area around the UK and their data is wired in directly to the site. This voluntary setup means that some sea areas aren’t covered. Some buffs switch off the equipment when they go to bed. Some are late up in the morning. In each of these cases, ships suddenly stop dead in the water, frozen at their last known point of passage.
If you’re reading this, try it, like it, live in an area not currently covered and feel like giving tracking a whirl, contact the site managers and do us all a favour.
Inveraray An Suidhe windfarm gets go-ahead
The planned 23-turbine windfarm at An Suidhe, five miles west of Inveraray and now owned by npower Renewables who took it over from E.ON UK, has been given planning permission by Argyll and Bute Council. It will generate up to 21 megawatts, providing power for around eleven thousand homes. npower describe the An Suidhe as ‘an ideal wind farm site, it has high wind speeds, is outside International, National and Highland Council designations for landscape and ecology. It is also close to the electricity grid and has good road access via the nearby A83.’
npower Renewables currently operate nineteen windfarms across the UK and are investing in their first wave power project on Siadar, Isle of Lewis.