Off and On Rona This Week

We had a wee trip over to see friends in Shieldaig, part of that was to visit kishorn boat yard to see the engineers there and also to have a look at a new Woodland Trust forest where the local’s were wondering what ‘The Road to Nowhere’ was actually for. More of that later. But in the meantime we remembered Calum the stag, this was a couple of years back and he looked terrible then but the reason I have posted this is that I saw a photo of him on FB and he looked really Bad, I hope I can find it and enlarge on why stags that reach this stage would be better culled rather than fed digestives, crisps and the odd applecore. Found the photo.

The photographer who took this photo is an ex- employee of Nature Scot and he was very disappointed to see this stag wandering about the layby, with no teeth and looking the worse for wear. I understand he is not being culled as he is a tourist attraction? On the same week this photo was taken two deer controllers were spotted heading out to the hills (at the end of March which is outrageous/leave the deer in peace boys? ) on Neighbouring Nature Scot Beinn Eighe nature reserve. Although this layby where Calum stops may be on the border between them and the National Trust. Either of them should do the decent thing.

Back to Rona and we were out on the boat and spotted the first of the Kayaker groups to visit in the season, these guys were camping on Raasay and we suspected they would arrive on Rona soon.

More maintenance after the boat run and a feel at the bottom of the outboards in the water told me the anodes did not exist anymore. So ashore it came and I replaced them quickly before the tide came back in. This boat fairly goes through the anodes and that is part of its problem, the hull is suffering from erosion and I imagine it will not last much longer. But it is no shame to it, it has been a very good boat for the Island, one of the best investments.

Grabbing an hour the next day I planted up 100 Scots Pine in the extended block put up by Grant our new lad, beside the path. To give a bigger plantation, interestingly there is not much regeneration in this 10 year old or so fenced block./ But therein lies the rub, the soil on Rona is very poor, compacted and very difficult for trees to get down to the iron pan to get the minerals they need to grow.

Just to reinforce that last statement here is a wee family of Red Deer on Rona enjoying the sun on a cool day, surviving on very poor moor. Deer and sheep are about the only animals that will return good protein in such poor conditions, they have adapted very well to living on this type of ground especially with the re-generation readily available but it is interesting again to see Red Deer out on this ‘poor’ ground and often in the bogs picking away at the plants they like selecting.

Another maintenance excercise, the wind turbines were serviced by Bryn who was here helping for two months last year. But it was post winter and I thought it a good idea on a calm day to check the Big Harbour one out. It was Grant’s firszt time servicing them so we took them down and I showed him the various parts to grease and replace. He quickly did the service and put the turbine back up. It is now 21 years old and as good as the day it came with little in the way of replacement parts. Well done the late Ken Proven for building such a simple design.

And sure enough at the end of the day the kayakers rocked up, taking on water and venison. The leader whose name escapes me has been coming with groups to Rona these last 20 years. Not just for the venison.