Episode 4 Hebrides - Islands on the Edge

On the edge of the Atlantic lies a world of rock and water.

Wind-scoured and rugged...

yet full of grace and beauty.

Exposed to a restless ocean...

..and Europe's wildest weather,

the animals and people of these islands

face challenge after challenge.

GEESE HONKING

We've lived side by side for centuries here...

..sharing the same landscape through the same seasons.

And as the world changes...

..pressures are mounting on all of us.

So, can the people of these islands work together with the natural world

to find a new way forward?

Here on Scotland's wild west coast...

GROWLING

..here in the Hebrides.

The west coast of Scotland

has hundreds of islands...

..but there are only a few places like this,

where you can almost step across from the mainland.

It's one of the oldest gateways to the Hebrides,

the crossing, by ferry, from Glenelg to the Isle of Skye -

the Kyle Rhea Narrows.

It's a short crossing, but there's a strong tidal flow.

Seasoned ferryman, Donnie MacDonald,

knows precisely how to use these currents to get across.

And he's not the only one to exploit this fast channel.

The tide sweeps hundreds of mackerel to the surface every day...

..and the local animals know it.

A harbour seal is poised, one of more than 100,

ready to take these rich pickings.

'The channel's narrow and it's, er...'

the seals are working here all the time,

and they're pushing the fish up to the top.

Gulls also wait in the wings.

And something else is watching the gulls...

..white-tailed eagles.

Such is the draw of the eagles that, instead of using the bridge to Skye,

tourists are choosing to cross on this old ferry.

It keeps us busy all day.

It's good entertainment for us, as well.

And the tourists just love him, completely love him.

Donnie steers to give them a ringside view,

and the eagle puts on a show.

He's realised he needn't hunt for his own mackerel.

As soon as a seal catches a fish, the gulls dive...

..and the eagle spots his chance.

Look at this!

He's put on a good show today.

The gull has the mackerel in its throat...

..but the eagle's determined to win its prize.

Did you get that?

The largest predatory bird in Britain,

living right alongside us,

and benefiting us in unexpected ways.

The income from the tourists

is keeping this community ferry service alive.

This is the story of the people

who live side by side with wild animals in the Hebrides.

From the air, many of these islands

seem the very essence of wilderness.

From the watery world of the Uists...

..to the rugged mountains of Harris and Jura.

But this landscape's been shaped

and nurtured by people for millennia.

People and wildlife can be the best of neighbours.

After all, we share these island homes.

But, sometimes, neighbours fall out.

This is Islay, known as the Queen of the Hebrides.

Mild and damp, it has some of the best farmland in the islands.

Low lying fields and plenty of lush, green grass

are perfect for livestock...

..making up the bulk of farmers' livelihoods here.

It's also the destination for visitors from Greenland...

..Barnacle geese...

..arriving for the winter in their tens of thousands,

after flying non-stop for 48 hours...

..eventually settling on the mudflats for a well-earned rest.

James How manages a reserve and farm

for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

It's his job to help look after this giant flock.

'Geese, a massive part of the island, there's no getting away from that'

and I love them to bits, you know, I miss them when they're not here,

and I love them when they come back.

I always think of them a bit like

some of these great African migrations, actually.

The geese are our big migration,

this is the graziers that we get from the north.

They're not wildebeest, but they're nearly there!

Once the geese have rested, they start to get hungry

and they need to graze.

Over 40,000 geese, heading to the farmers' fields...

..including those belonging to beef farmer, James Brown.

'You can hear the geese just now.

'The geese are just arriving now, in their thousands.'

Every year there seems to be more.

GEESE HONKING

70% of Greenland's Barnacle geese

arriving to feast on their favourite food...

..the rich grassland the farmers want for their sheep and cows.

Ironically, artificial fertilizers, better grass seeds

and larger fields - which have benefited the farmers -

have also boosted the number of geese.

They are big, strong, hungry birds,

so they are eating a lot.

They do a huge amount of damage...

..and over the years it's got worse.

20 geese can eat the same amount as a cow...

..in field, after field, after field.

The geese are always going to be here

and you've just got to live with them.

I wouldn't like to kill them all, I'm not that type.

I like the geese, I love to hear them,

but they do cost us a lot of money.

As these important migrants were protected

and the farmers were losing money, a compromise had to be struck.

In the 1980s, the RSPB bought their Loch Gruinart reserve

to take some pressure off the geese and the farms...

..and they employed people like James How,

who's both a farmer and a conservationist.

'I went to work for the RSPB as a volunteer

'and I realised that, at the time,'

they didn't have a lot of knowledge of agricultural systems,

so I thought I'll go away and I'll come back to them

when I know about agriculture in a much more defined manner.

James learned how to manage the land

to suit both the livestock and the geese.

And, eventually, I did come back to them, after quite some years.

Came up here for a three week holiday,

and I've been here now 16 years, one way or another.

The RSPB has found a way to protect the geese

and the Government now compensates farmers for their lost grazing, too.

'Well, with the compensation,'

you know, it's softened the blow quite a bit

and you've just got to live with them.

And on Islay these spectacular flocks

are starting to earn their keep.

They are bringing in a lot of tourists, which is not a bad thing.

And they are here, so we might as well try and exploit them.

They also taste OK!

I live right in the middle of one of the best goose areas,

and the geese, all winter, are around.

I can hear their chattering all day.

And it just becomes part of your daily existence.

Come the springtime the geese will leave,

and the first thing you notice is how quiet it goes.

You've got all the songbirds singing,

but suddenly the goose chattering's there and it's almost like, you know,

they're friends - they've gone back away but they'll come back, you know.

People have farmed these islands for over 6,000 years, shaping the land.

Some of the oldest workings are still visible

as strips and ridges on the hills.

But from the 1700s, a new type of farming took over

which still exists today...

..crofting.

The Hebrides supported thousands of crofts -

small pieces of land close to the shore.

Families lived in cottages, growing their own food

and tending their livestock on communal land.

There are fewer crofters now,

but some people do remember how things once were.

Alice Starmore is a well-known knitting designer.

She owns a croft on Lewis.

It used to be a necessity to croft.

When my parents were children you had to have a croft to survive.

And it was tough.

Now it's a privilege to have land and to be able to use it.

I consider that to be a huge privilege

and it's a really important part of my life.

Traditionally, crofters spent their winters by the shore.

Then, in the summer, families took their livestock up to the moor,

allowing the grass at the croft to regrow.

When Alice was a child,

the hills of the moorland became her home every summer.

It was very beautiful and we didn't have electricity,

and you just lived very, very simply.

And we walked and, just as children, had the whole freedom of the place.

It was just discovery every day in nature.

The moor is a haven for wildlife.

Red-throated and black-throated divers return every year to breed...

..and the small, isolated pools are perfect for damselflies.

Its spectacular outbursts of natural colour

have been a lifelong inspiration.

I take my cue from nature.

I'm well known in the world of knitting,

especially for my colour work,

and it all comes from here, and from my experiences,

and from my love of the nature of this place.

And every colour that I've composed out of it

comes specifically from nature.

I think people in textiles and art have always used nature.

Nature is just filled with colour and texture,

and all of those things.

So, yes, this place, specifically, has informed that for me.

Crofting is in decline...

..and nowadays is more a lifestyle choice,

and not an easy one, at that.

But perhaps people like Alice can keep the traditions going

for the next generation.

My grandson is very, very interested in the croft and in the cattle,

and he enjoys them immensely.

I would like to think that, for me, anyway,

that is something that is going to continue.

I would like to leave this croft

in really, really good shape for the future.

By spending their summers away on the moor,

the crofters gave the coastal land time to regenerate.

And, by giving nature time to recover,

they created a unique place down by the shoreline...

..the machair.

In summer it's a wonderland of flowers and insects.

Once, much of Britain's farmland looked like this.

But now the machair is almost the only place

to find one of the rarest bees in Britain...

..the great yellow bumblebee,

which feeds on deep-flowered plants like vetches and clovers.

And where there are plenty of insects, there are birds.

Alison MacLennan is an RSPB Conservation Officer.

The farmland of the Hebrides is made up of a really rich mosaic

of pasture land, agricultural land,

but all in small units - little parcels.

So, you get lots of different habitats in a relatively small area

and that's what makes it so attractive to the wildlife.

For centuries, crofters have fertilized the machair with seaweed

and let the land lie fallow for years between crops.

It's a recipe which allows wildlife to thrive.

The closeness of beach and cultivated land

has thrown a lifeline to one of our rarest birds...

..the chough.

They're a type of crow.

Here on Oronsay they live close to the shore.

Choughs are amazing birds, really. They're full of character.

Like many members of the crow family,

they're actually very intelligent, but there's a sort of smartness,

and more a sort of chumminess about choughs, really.

I like to think of them as the sort of collar and tie version

of the crow family.

Choughs spend most of their time looking for insects to feed on.

That's primarily what they're actually after.

They dig for them in the rotting kelp...

..or in cowpats above the beach.

It's time consuming - little reward for a lot of hard work -

and tempers can flare.

THEY SQUAWK

Apparently, some birds simply can't find enough to eat,

especially in their first winter.

There are fewer than 60 pairs of chough in the Hebrides.

But there is a simple way to help them.

It's what the RSPB do on Islay and Oronsay.

'To have cattle managed in traditional ways,

'where they're out grazing on pastures year-round'

so they're fed outside in the winter and whatnot,

so there is this sort of year-round supply of cattle dung,

and that provides a year-round source of food for the birds.

Finding enough food is one thing, but finding shelter is another.

Especially if you nest on the ground.

BIRD BUZZING

'Ah, the call of the corncrake -'

so often heard in the northwest but so seldom seen!

Corncrakes fly here from Africa.

A century ago you could hear them craking all over Britain.

But now they're only found here.

They don't ask much -

just for somewhere to hide until their chicks are grown.

But on modern farms there's no space for nettles

and the crops are cut earlier now, killing their chicks.

In the islands, though, crofters leave their nettles.

If they also harvest late,

they can give the corncrakes a place to call home.

There's just over 1,000 calling males -

they're the only ones that make this peculiar rasping call,

but that's up from just over 300 calling males

back in the early '90s.

For some animals, survival depends entirely on living on an island.

Colonsay is warmed by offshore currents.

It's so lush here that palm trees grow

in the gardens of Colonsay House.

And this island is home to more than a third

of all Britain's flowering plants...

..an abundance of riches for the insects which pollinate them.

Including one which is really special...

..Britain's native honeybee.

Andrew Abrahams is a master beekeeper.

The black bee is well adapted to island life,

and probably west coast life, you could say,

in the sense that there always seems to be feast or famine.

I suppose the skill of living out on the islands is to adapt to that,

and the bees pretty well do that.

Black bees have lived on the mainland

since the end of the last ice age...

..but they were brought to these islands by Irish monks

more than 1,000 years ago.

One of their priories still stands on neighbouring Oronsay.

For them the bees were very important for honey,

mostly medicinal purposes, but also for beeswax.

The monks used the beeswax to make candles,

helping them read and write,

so preserving knowledge through the Dark Ages.

But, in the early 1900s,

black bees on the mainland were virtually wiped out by disease.

Continental bees were imported to replace them

but they're not as well adapted to our climate.

The black bee is suited to the hard weather...

wet, cold winters, and often very wet, cold summers.

It has the ability to survive in difficult conditions,

so it's important that the genes of the black bee,

which is our native bee, are conserved,

and that's what I'm hoping to do here with the bees that I've got.

Andrew is lobbying the Scottish Government

to turn Colonsay into a black bee reserve

so no other kinds of bees and their diseases can be brought here.

We need to conserve the black bees.

We maybe don't know why, we have no idea what the future holds...

but scientists the world over

are shouting the warning that we lose honeybees in general,

but also genetic resources of honeybees, at our peril.

We mustn't lose that genetic resource.

If Andrew does manage to turn these islands into a reserve

it will give the black bees a sanctuary,

just as Oronsay once was for the monks.

While the Hebrides are refuges for some residents...

..they also attract some very impressive visitors.

In the waters around his home on Coll,

Innes Henderson fishes for crabs with his son, Ross.

And in the summer they're not alone.

Well, we get quite a lot of visitors in the summer.

The main one's the basking sharks,

which seem to be getting more and more every year,

and the most fantastic creatures

that we know very little about.

For years basking sharks were harpooned for their oil

and their numbers crashed.

They're protected now, and the waters around Coll and Tiree

are once more among the best places in the world to see them.

They feed on the surface with their noses up

and, I mean, there's quite often days

where we're having to drive round them, there's that many of them.

Basking sharks are the second largest fish in the world.

But, even so, they've been slow to give up their secrets.

Dr Mauvis Gore has studied sharks across the globe,

but basking sharks in Scotland had eluded her.

Until a chance meeting in Tobermory harbour changed everything.

We were waiting to fuel up and there was this fishing boat in the way,

so I went over to talk to the fisherman, just asking him if he...

I ask everybody if they've ever seen any basking sharks.

And he turns around to me in a throw-away remark,

and he says, "We've got hundreds of them on Coll." I said, "What?!"

She said, "That's impossible." And she came out the next day,

and she saw 100 and... I think it was a 130 that first day.

It was a breakthrough for Mauvis.

After years of looking, she could finally get to grips

with these mysterious giants.

In the summer months, they're drawn to our rich Hebridean waters

to feed on plankton.

You just see this black fin coming through the waters.

And, often as not, they'll turn towards you,

and they'll be coming straight at you.

And it's just, it's just wonderful.

They're so calm and they're beautiful,

they move so smoothly through the water,

so graceful at what they're doing.

They're just feeding most of the time

and they seem to not mind you, as long as you don't mind them.

They're just wonderful animals.

Since Mauvis first saw the sharks here, with Innes,

she's come back every summer, just like them.

She's even fitted some sharks with tags to track where they go.

And one of her tags revealed something extraordinary...

..just how far a basking shark can travel.

And this one had gone all the way across the Atlantic

and ended up just off of Newfoundland,

and this was a real first for basking sharks.

Nobody had ever shown that they could actually do this.

So this tag was absolutely fantastic,

telling us that the sharks can cross the Atlantic.

They had the energy and the drive and the need to do this.

People used to imagine that when the sharks left our coasts

they didn't feed...

..but instead wintered far below, in a sleep-like state.

But, as Mauvis and other scientists discover more about their lives,

it seems they travel, and feed continuously.

Perhaps basking shark populations all around the globe are connected.

Sharks are in decline everywhere,

but here in the Hebrides basking sharks seem to be doing well.

I think people are beginning to appreciate

just what wonderful animals they are

and what an iconic species it is for Scotland.

They're just amazing. They're fantastic creatures.

They're mouths look that big you could walk in without bending down.

They're very graceful. Beautiful things to watch.

I feel that I'm privileged to be in their sea, really.

Er, they're far more powerful

and probably see more of the world than I ever will.

The sharks are a sign

of how much food there is around these islands in summer.

But the seas here used to be even richer.

And they could be again,

if we can bring our demands into balance with nature.

Dirk Campbell is a marine biologist who now dives for scallops.

Traditionally, the west coast was one of the most productive fishing zones

in temperate waters.

The '70s was the heyday of all fishing.

It was like the zenith of, like, abundance and industrialisation -

they came together and there was

just phenomenal fishing catches reported everywhere.

The demand for fish was insatiable...

..and the sea appeared to have no limits.

But over the next 20 years fish stocks dwindled.

White fish - turbot, monkfish, plaice, cod -

that's the bigger picture, that's what we've lost.

And that was in abundance in this sort of heyday.

So, very slowly, very insidiously,

so that no-one noticed, really -

no-one turned round and said, "Where've they gone?" -

they just sort of disappeared.

On islands like Islay

many fishermen concentrated on catching crabs, lobster

and the still plentiful shellfish.

The smaller vessels use creels to catch them.

It's sustainable and has a low impact.

This is the Firth of Lorn, near Mull.

Its home to some of the most diverse and fragile reefs in British waters.

Dirk and other divers catch the scallops which live here,

mainly on the gravelly seabed alongside the reefs.

Picking them individually does no damage to other marine life...

..and it leaves the younger ones behind to grow on.

You really need to fish it accurately and sensitively.

In the face of abundance, just take enough for your needs.

Since 2007, this area has been closed

to types of fishing more likely to cause damage.

The closure is temporary,

but Dirk believes he's already seen the difference it can make.

Very slowly, we're starting to see recovery

on a scale that...creates excitement.

For Dirk, permanently closing off some parts of the coastline

is the way forward.

The easiest and most effective way

is simply to close off an area and trust in nature.

Just leave it, and the rewards will come to you,

they'll leap out the water. I really believe it.

It's a bit like leaving the machair to recover between crops,

but on a much longer timescale.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a new relationship

between people and the sea.

A healthy sea benefits everyone who fishes...

and that includes communities of animals.

Huge numbers of gannets - a fifth of the world population -

fish off these shores...

..and, in turn, we can benefit from them.

The seabird colonies of the Hebrides are some of the very best.

The Hebrides are an absolutely stunning place for seabirds -

not just in the UK context, not just in a European context -

we've got some of the top seabird colonies in the world.

The Treshnish Isles lie just to the west of Mull...

..and they're home to everyone's favourite bird...

..puffins...

..coming back to nest after spending the winter out at sea.

But there are dangers on the cliffs above.

Ravens will kill puffins.

And hooded crows, or hoodies,

will mug them for their fish once they're ashore.

But these puffins have some unlikely allies.

Every afternoon, a boat arrives,

and the puffins know that the ravens and crows are frightened of people.

So they wait on the sea until the visitors set foot on the islands.

And, as soon as the coast is clear, in they come.

Providing the people show respect, it's an ideal trade-off.

In exchange for getting on with their lives in safety,

the puffins give us the views of a lifetime.

And everyone loves puffins.

Puffins are SUCH characters.

Each one just oozing with sort of character and sort of attitude.

Puffins mate for life, but they've been apart all winter,

so now they re-affirm their vows.

They've got that really brightly coloured bill

and it's there for a purpose,

and there's a whole series of little head flicking, and beak tapping,

and bobbing that's involved,

and, actually, showing off that fantastic bill,

and demonstrating that you are the one for your partner.

Once they have a chick,

both parents will need to gather beakfuls of sprats and sand eels.

These birds will actually let you get really close to them,

so you can get a real inside view of what life is like for a puffin.

And it's not easy these days, either.

You know, the puffin is one of these species that is relying on sand eels,

and sand eels are in a lot of trouble at the moment.

The problem is the world's climate is changing,

and as the sea warms up there's less food for sand eels,

and fewer fish for the puffins.

The warming seas have issued another challenge

to these islands on the edge.

The Hebrides are renowned for storms.

And now the effects of climate change

are making them even more powerful and unpredictable.

It's far from easy living here...

..and many islands struggle to hold on to their people.

The island of Jura.

Willie MacDonald is head keeper at one of the estates,

and he's lived here all his life.

Any small island, small population,

everything about them is fragile.

The economy is very fragile.

The population - everything dictated by the population

because you haven't got enough people to sustain businesses properly.

Everything's on the borderline all the time.

And I think that's the way it will always be.

Your ferry service is your critical link - that has to subsidised.

So, I mean, everything is fragile. It's just part of life here.

It doesn't help that Jura is so isolated.

The only way to drive on or off the island is from neighbouring Islay.

DEER BRAYING

On Islay and Jura

there's one animal which brings in more money than any other.

On Jura it even outnumbers the people by 30 to one,

and it's the mainstay of the island's economy.

The red deer.

Jura's name is appropriate...

..from the Old Norse for 'Island of Deer'.

How they're managed is critical for both us and them.

Obviously, the red deer are our dominant wild animal,

but, I mean, there's lots of others as well.

We've got seven sporting estates,

all of them actively involved in deer management,

it's very important to them.

If that wasn't happening,

then the deer population on Jura would be...

Well, it would explode,

and that would then bring in a lot of problems with it.

It's Willie MacDonald's job to control the herd by culling

to maintain a careful balance between people,

the landscape and the deer.

We control the animals -

that means that we control the management of the deer herds,

farming controls, your bird life,

the environment that these birds and the wildlife lives within.

So, man has a huge part of play in that.

But there's a fine line between man's involvement

and plain interference.

Over on the Uists, there's a non-native animal

that has settled in rather comfortably.

Back in the 1970s, hedgehogs were introduced

by a well-meaning gardener to eat slugs.

Since then, their population has exploded...

..and they're eating the eggs of rare waders on the machair, too.

And, without natural predators,

there are now between 3,000 and 4,000 of these prickly customers

running around the islands.

But there's an ongoing project to capture every one...

..luring them into traps with fish oil...

..and sending them back to the mainland, where they belong.

When we introduce new animals to these islands,

they always cause problems.

But there are native animals with roots as deep as ours

which had completely vanished...

..and now we're bringing some back.

White-tailed eagles...

reintroduced from Norway.

The island of Mull is now home to 14 pairs...

..and plantations of conifers provide ideal places to nest.

The eagles were wiped out by hunters -

the last bird shot in 1918.

But now the white-tailed eagle is protected by law.

Every new chick is monitored by the Forestry Commission...

..and David Sexton from the RSPB.

When the chicks are about five or six weeks old,

we make a close visit to find out how they're doing,

give them a health check.

It's always a tricky operation -

we're always a bit worried and concerned, make sure things go well.

And all under the watchful eyes of the parents.

There's a bit of flying round and they get a bit worked up

to start with, but they soon calm down

and we are in and out of here as quickly as possible.

Even at this young age, it's best to keep your fingers

away from those sharp beaks.

Once they've settled down, the chicks are ringed

to help identify them when they're older.

Reintroducing these eagles to Scotland has been a success.

From the first few birds released in the mid 1970s,

there are now over 50 pairs breeding in the Hebrides.

And, as this year's chicks prepare to leave,

each first flight is a testament

to the communities of people who've brought them this far.

But bringing white-tailed eagles back has been controversial.

They're expert hunters and some farmers fear for their lambs.

They're big predators

and we're all getting used to living with a bird again

that has been extinct now in Scotland for virtually 100 years.

So it does take some getting used to.

But often they're just scavenging.

These two youngsters have found a deer carcass.

And, of course, they're commonly called sea eagles for a reason...

..this is where they search for much of their food.

We're getting to know them again,

like the islanders who once knew them so well.

There are quite a number of Gaelic names for the white-tailed eagle,

but the one that it's best known for is 'Iolaire sil na greine',

which means, 'The eagle with the sun in its eye'.

The adult has this beautiful, golden yellow iris to its eye,

as if the sun was shining from it.

And gold is what the eagles are bringing -

tourists are flocking here to see them.

They have been a tremendous benefit to the islands.

There's a tremendous tourist economy

that is just going to see the sea eagles,

and it's bringing somewhere in the region of, for Mull,

perhaps about £5 million to the economy each year.

I have to say that the white-tailed eagle

is something really special for me.

They're big, long-lived birds with an identity.

They are individuals.

You can get to know them as individuals

and that's something quite special, I think, in the natural world.

These islands, with their unique landscapes and spectacular wildlife,

have been popular with visitors for a very long time.

People have come here for years to take to the water...

..on paddle steamers, like the Waverley...

..to visit castles, like Duart...

..or to cruise alongside dolphins...

..travel to see the basalt columns of Staffa...

..journey into the hidden world of Fingal's Cave.

Tourism is set to play a huge role

in the future of the people and the wildlife living here.

But the key is our relationship with the animals

and the home we share with them.

If we can farm and fish sensitively...

..if we can show respect for other lives...

..and strike a balance between our needs and theirs...

..the Hebrides have every chance of remaining so special.

Well, I've never known anything else.

You know, it's been here all my life,

but I think the big thing about staying here

is not just take it for granted - to really appreciate what we've got.

You'll never get bored looking round and seeing the scenery,

always something different.

It's just an amazing place to be. Surprises around every corner.

The proximity of the mountain tops and the sea - just stunning.

We'll never escape nature as human beings,

and I think that, hopefully, there will be a growing respect for it.

These are islands which can inspire us...

..which can fill us with awe.

Here, in the Hebrides.

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