...and another thing.

I came across an article called "The Place Names of a Deserted Island" (from
http://www.skerray.com/island-roan/place-names) compiled by Iain Fraser on the testimony of Donald Mackay.
Given that the steps to the island have now been washed away - making visiting so much more difficult - I had a mind to photograph all of the visual features related by Donald so that, at the very least, anyone interested in this island, but unable to visit, would get a flavour of this enigmatic location. Photos will appear in due course with a view to placing them all somewhere in the future as a visual record of the island.

A view across Broad Skerry (Sgeir Leathann) towards The Gullet (An Gluta)

Other things...

In addition to all the birdy things on-going two other 'projects' were initiated this year.

Gerry started a Flora and Fauna listings - which we'll continue next year, and also add night-time moths, and Bob started a mapping and photographic record of all of the buildings.

For the F and F the first year yielded: x3 Coleoptera, x5 Lepidoptera, x10 Arachnida, x1 Hymenoptera x1 Achaeognatha (beetles, butterflies, spiders, bees, windless insects); as well as 22 plants from docks to broom and gorse to bracken {Gerry, plus one conifer in the 'new' gully!].

For the buildings Bob started to map them, primitively, and started a full photographic record which he hopes to build into a 'virtual' representation of what the buildings would have looked like when in use.

(Our) house number 5 - with outbuildings

Four layers of wallpaper taken from (our) house number 7 [left most recent]

Final night and final figures.

On Thursday night we set up on Am Bail - The Village - otherwise known as the camp site. Again with only two sixty foot nets we started catching at 23.30hrs and continued until we had all had enough. This proved to be just after 2.15am when we had caught in excess of 350 new birds.

One of the many

After four hours sleep, or thereabouts, we started to dismantle camp ready for our departure at eleven. Jean duly arrived with Billy on a choppy sea. Obviously it was going to be a little wet if Jean had talked land-loving Billy into coming along - and so it proved - at least for Cian (and Billy).

Final finals.
In the end our totals for the year were:
Storm Petrel
1507 new birds
34 retraps (including, original ringing year, 1995 x1, 2001 x1, 2007 x1, 2009 x2, 2010 x1, 2012 x10, 2013 x6)
81 retraps (our own birds from 2014 and not put into IPMR)

14 UK controls
2 Portugese controls
4 Norwegian controls (with one bird caught twice)

Great Skua
11 new (including one adult) with 3 retraps
1 Fulmar
1 Snipe
1 Wheatear (same year, juvenile retrap)

Catching some more

The following night the wind was still blowing, but easing, and we pitched the nets in the gully at Cnoc an Losgann. We started catching at 23.30hrs but then, unfortunately, the weather beat us into retreat as steady rain set in after 1am - with us only catching 84 new birds. Timing was everything as we all managed to get back into out tents before heavier rains gave forth.

Catching Storm Petrels at night is not our only activity while on the island. During the day we're keen to 'have a go' at anything else that may be catch-able. There were small collections of twite on the island, but several attempts and several different lures yielded a big fat zero. We did however find ten juvenile Great Skua and caught one free-flying adult - all of which were ringed. We did also ring one Fulmar chick and one Snipe chick - we didn't try for shag this year.

An uncaught Twite

Ringed, photographed and replaced

Fulmar feeding Fulmar

Catching

Sunday evening we set up on what we call The Maze - a gentle sloping piece of land at the north of the island. Locally it is known as Cam Ban - the White Cain - which is the rock structure immediately to the east.
CAtching the first bird at 23.15hrs we continued until we ran out of rings- 557 new birds; where the previous nights record had been a mere 380 (the rest of our rings were back at the camp site). In addition we were catching both local and international retraps (see totals later). We closed down, early, at 02.16hrs Monday morning.

This is Alex nest finding at the White Cain (during the day)

Monday night we were back at Cam Ban with all of our rings. The first bird was caught at 23.30hrs and we continued catching until 03.28hrs - 414 new birds were caught.

Tuesday night was a night off - not due to slacking on our part - but the weather was too inclement and unpredictable with high wings and squally showers to justify staying awake for little return.

Plan B not needed.

This year's gallant party counted nine and we traveled up in three cars on the morning of Saturday 27th. All made good time until reaching the A9 just short of Ballinluig where a minibus had made contact with two cars and partially blocked the road. Kenny et al lost about an hour here, Paul et al, traveling just behind Kenny, were forewarned and managed to divert, while Scott and Cian ploughed in regardless and lost over two and a half hours. Paul paid a heavier price a little later on when his car started to overheat and he had to be 'recovered' on the back of a tow-truck to Tongue, during heavy rain storms to be, hopefully, repaired at a local garage while we were on the island.

Allan, Bob, Kenny, Alex, Colin, Paul, Cian, Scott, Gerry - the 'Class of 2014'

Sunday morning dawned a little damp. It was too hot to wear waterproofs but rained a little to hard not too. On reaching Skerray Jean, with son Andy, were all fired up ready to go and two crossings were made on millpond conditions.
As we knew beforehand the steps to the island had been washed away due to winter storms and so we were prepared for a beach landing. However, things on the jetty were not as bad as first thought as a convenient rock lent itself to some fairly easy free-climbing in order to get on top of those steps that did remain After that it was just strategic positioning of bodies and a hand-over-hand daisy chain to transfer the luggage up onto the island. We had arrived for 2014.

The typical camp-site view