St Kilda
Hebridean Harvest - Pilot Whales
Hebrides: Islands on the Edge - Ewan McGregor
Living in this world of rock and water is tough for people and animals alike. But in the outer Hebrides, people have found remarkable ways of surviving. The most unusual human community of all lay on a group of islands 40 miles to the west of the Uist machair… St Kilda.
The islanders who lived here were the last pure hunting community in Britain. Living almost entirely on a diet of puffins, gannets and fulmars, they’d think nothing of scaling the thousand-foot cliffs barefoot to harvest the seabirds.
These cliffs still support the biggest seabird colonies in Western Europe. The fang-like Stacs are home to the single largest gannet colony on the planet. One fifth of the world population lives here.
Now in mid-July, the colony is full of plump young gannets locally known as gugas. They were a key food for the St Kildans and are still sometimes eaten in parts of the outer Hebrides.
St Kildan Way of Life
The St Kildan’s way of life was so unusual and self-contained, it simply couldn’t survive contact with the modern world.
Worn down by disease and the loss of fit young people to a life over the sea, the last 36 islanders asked to be evacuated in 1930. Their community could adapt no further, but they left other inhabitants behind - and they ARE changing.
Like a Scottish Galapagos, St Kilda now gives scientists a chance to watch evolution in action. The wrens on St Kilda can’t fly strongly enough to leave, and they are growing larger. They are now 25% heavier than their mainland cousins. They have a deeper song and lay larger eggs, too. Maybe they’ve had to toughen-up to these exposed conditions. The islanders’ Soay sheep are changing too, but in the opposite direction - they’re shrinking. Like the red deer, they have an autumn rutting season, and these pint-sized rams are preparing themselves by sparring on the hillside.
The island has a field mouse too, but it’s moved into the village, finding homes in the dry-stone walls and houses.
But needs must, as every castaway knows, and the mice have turned into carnivores - feeding on dead sheep and seabirds. They’re also growing larger. Could St Kilda be seeing the evolution of a giant sheep-hunting rodent? Perhaps not!
Sitting under its veil of cloud, St Kilda is really dry and sunny. But back on the machair, it’s a different story. The unseasonal spring storms have been followed by one of the driest summers in living memory. It hasn’t rained for weeks. Throughout July, the ground-nesting birds are working frantically. The Skylark chicks that seemed so small and defenceless just weeks ago are now chasing their parents for food.
The plants are wilting, but there are still plenty of insects for the many young wading birds. They are growing fast, but still can’t fly. The Lapwing chicks have grown, but the brood is down to just two. It’s a bigger loss of life than you’d expect in a place without ground predators. It’s suspicious. The alarm goes up. A ferret, an escaped domestic animal, is on the loose and causing chaos. The waders mob it, trying to drive it away from their flightless chicks. But it’s too late, it’s got one. It vanishes into the long grass, but the damage is done.
Introduced animals like ferrets can cause havoc in this fragile place… but that’s not the only problem. The Uist machair is less than 2m above sea level in many places. Now the climate is changing, and with it, the sea is slowly rising. These low-lying islands are in danger of being claimed by the ocean. Here, where change is a fact of life, they say, “what the wind brings, the current takes away”. It’s a reminder that, whatever we might like to believe, living here, on the outermost edge of the Hebrides, is on the ocean’s terms.
It’s August, and the outer Hebrides appear almost tropical as the sun beats down day after day. The drought is causing a real problem… for Atlantic salmon. After a life at sea, they’re gathering by the mouth of their home river, close to Amhuinnsuidhe Castle on Harris. To complete their life cycle, they need to swim upstream to spawn. They’ve travelled here from Greenland to do this… but the last stage of their long journey is impossible, as the river is too low.
It’s not a problem for dippers. They work the river bed for insects which thrive in the bubbling water. Unable to advance, the waiting salmon are being picked off by grey seals. It’ll take a great deal of rain to raise the river enough for the fish to advance.
In the hills above the castle, a family of red-throated divers also at a turning point in their lives. The two chicks are growing fast and they’re hungry. But one is larger and more aggressive. It’s quite rare for a second chick to even get this far. Usually, it would lose out on most of the feeds and die. But fish have been so plentiful this year that both chicks are almost ready to head out to sea. They just need to learn how to fly.
The parents take off and land to show their youngsters exactly how it’s done. But it’s a challenging skill to master. This chick still has some way to go. You also need a lot of extra lift when your home is surrounded by mountains this steep. They don’t have long. There’s a change in the air. Autumn will be closing in soon.
Pilot Whales
Storm clouds are building. The narrow sea Loch in South Uist, 60 pilot whales have become trapped. They are creatures of the open ocean, but they may have followed a small squid into this dangerous place. It’s not good. They’re not used to being hemmed in like this, and the younger whales are starting to panic. Several have cut themselves on the sharp rocks. Their distress grows. The shore is dangerously close. Stranding is now a real possibility. But luck is on their side. The tide is rising, opening the door of their prison, and the pod starts to move back towards safety in the open ocean.
It’s almost a relief, after four weeks of drought, when normal Hebridean weather returns.
High in the mountains of Harris, the rivers are swelling, and the water thunders towards the sea. The salmon are finally on their way.
The summer rain has replenished the machair lands, too. Crops are ripening as the wild flowers set seed. In the Uists, crofters will soon be bringing the harvest in. But there’s always seed to spare for small mammals, which is good news for birds of prey.
A recently fledged short-eared owl chick watches one of its parents quarter the fields, hunting for mice and voles. The machair is quieter now. The wading birds have moved off the fields, and on to the beach. Seaweed, washed up by the spring storm, is rotting quickly in the midsummer heat. Hordes of insects have been attracted in to feed on the decaying piles. Springtails eat bacteria that break down the kelp. As the tide sweeps in, they swarm into clusters. On the surface, they’re fair game for passing terns. In time, these piles of kelp will be laid on the machair, and the richness of the ocean will revitalise the crofters’ fields.
Hebridean Harvest
It’s September, and across the Uists, ancient machinery grinds into life. It’s harvest time. Once the crops are cut, they’re the e gathered into sheaves, and then piled into stooks and stacks. It’s a system practised here for centuries. It works for people… and it works for wildlife, too. But the knowledge of how delicately it all fits together is fading, along with this generation of crofters. The high school on Benbecula is addressing this dilemma, by offering a special crofting course. Students get hands-on experience of the fine art of stooking and stacking.
It’s not just popular, it’s oversubscribed. It’s up to this generation of school-leavers to decide whether the machair lives on. And these are exactly the people who will be most tempted to leave the outer isles for a mainland, mainstream life.
As summer turns to autumn the gannets, divers and terns will leave these islands, and spread out across the globe. Under the cover of darkness, the pufflings will slip out to sea to spend many long months on the open ocean. But they’ll be back. Because there’s nowhere better than the Hebrides. These pressures islands on the edge are some of the best places for wildlife anywhere in the world.
