The Orcadian Features - Highlighting the differences of Onziebust and Trumland

Highlighting the differences of Onziebust and Trumland
In the latest in an occasional series of articles turning the spotlight on Orkney's RSPB reserves, warden Andy Mitchell says that even without visiting corncrakes it has been a spectacular summer on Egilsay
(From The Orcadian dated October 2, 2003)

Looking south across the Egilsay reserve to Gairsay and the Mainland.

The Onziebust reserve on Egilsay and the Trumland reserve on Rousay are managed by the same warden but could not be more different in character.

Trumland is 433 hectares (ha) of typical Orkney moorland that was purchased by the RSPB in 1985 for its importance for the conservation of hen harriers and other upland bird species in Orkney.

Although the number of nesting harriers fluctuates (in line with numbers on Mainland) there have been up to five nests in the past with four this year – the highest for some years.

The reserve rises up behind Trumland House and encompasses the highest point on Rousay, Blotchnie Fiold.

A marked nature trail starts near Taversoe Tuick cairn and follows an old peat track up the hill.

Remains of the peat cuttings are obvious but are now largely overgrown with heather providing excellent nesting conditions for skylarks and meadow pipits.

About halfway up the hill, a turn in the trail reveals a view of Knitchen Loch nestling below some fulmar-strewn hamars. A pair of red-throated divers nest on the loch every year.

Most of the heather on the south side of the hill is kept short by the prevailing wind and weather although the Hass of Trumland has enough deep heather and woodrush to allow a pair of hen harriers and a couple of pairs of short-eared owls to nest.

Once up on the top of Blotchnie Fiold and its neighbour, Knitchen Hill, the views are spectacular with every one of the north isles being visible as well as Fair Isle, and in very clear weather, Sumburgh Head in Shetland.

The north side of the reserve drops steeply at first, then gently down through upland heath and mire to the Suso Burn.

This is the main area for the breeding hen harriers and one or two pairs of merlins. The reserve has been managed in such a way as to allow the vegetation to develop naturally.

The thinking on this is changing (see the earlier article on Birsay Moors) and a more active management system may well be in place in the future. Although there is little habitat management, the numbers of birds using the reserve are closely monitored each year.

Working with a local farmer on the Egilsay reserve.

The warden, Andy Mitchell, lives on Egilsay and visits regularly throughout the spring and summer. Andy came back to Orkney to this job just over four years ago having spent most of the first half of the 1990s on North Ronaldsay working at the bird observatory there.

He went south for a while where he did a variety of jobs, including research work on skylarks and song thrushes before the lure of Orkney became too strong.

The story of the Onziebust reserve on Egilsay began in 1996 when 145 hectares of farmland were purchased.

This was principally to be managed for corncrakes since at that time, Egilsay had more corncrakes than any other single location in Orkney.

The land purchased also held a high concentration of breeding skylarks and included wetlands that provide excellent habitat for redshank, snipe, curlew and lapwing.

In 2001and 2002 further purchases brought the total holding to just over 272 ha.

The management work for corncrakes concentrates on providing ideal breeding habitat of which there are five elements.

The first element is ‘early cover’, which must be provided in corners and strips where the birds can hide when they first arrive from Africa on migration.

This is in late April or in early May and suitable areas of nettle and iris have been created or maintained next to hay fields for this purpose.

Last year we tried a new method of creating areas of iris as early cover; we dug up iris with a JCB from areas where it was not benefiting corncrakes, mixed it with farmyard manure from farms on the island and then spread it with a rear-delivery muckspreader into three specially-created, ten metre-wide corridors between fields.

These are still developing but the early signs are that the technique has been very successful.

The second element is tall grass as breeding habitat and the third is cutting the tall grass late.

Therefore, the fields on the reserve are not cut until after the birds will have finished breeding – at least August 1.

A view of the Manse Loch on Rousay.

The fourth element is cutting in a corncrake-friendly way, from the inside out towards the edges of the fields allowing any birds to escape the mower under cover.

The final element is ‘late cover’, somewhere for the adults to safely moult, and with the young, to hide from predators whilst putting on fat for the migration south.

This late cover may be the same areas used for early cover although they can be somewhat overgrown by this time.

As part of a reseeding programme to maintain suitable tall grass, a number of fields are sown with a crop each year, usually oats and barley, and these are cut late to provide cover.

The reseeding works on a seven-year cycle, with the first year being a break crop and the second year oats undersown with our own grass mix.

The field is then cut for hay for three or four years before returning to pasture until the end of the cycle.

The system has been devised to create a mosaic of fields at different stages of the cycle right across the reserve.

With the additional land purchases in the last two years, it has been a busy time putting this (as well as an extensive fencing programme) into effect, but having a summer such as this one makes the task easier.

Although still in its infancy, the system will produce a solid block of corncrake-friendly habitat on the island.

Some other landowners on Egilsay also manage their land sympathetically. Unfortunately, during this initial period corncrakes failed to return to Egilsay in 2001 and have not been back since.

As the numbers of corncrakes in Orkney as a whole doubled this year, we hope that it will only be a matter of time before they rediscover all this wonderful habitat that we have created for them.

Not all of the reserve is suitable for corncrake management and, as already mentioned, there are some interesting wetlands especially around the Manse Loch on the east of the island and the Loch of the Graand at the very southern tip of Egilsay.

This last site also holds good numbers of wildfowl such as wigeon, teal, goldeneye and mallard in the winter.

Some of the fields on the reserve are kept in permanent pasture. It is vital to the management strategy to have enough animals available to graze the reserve through autumn and winter before fields are shut up for hay in the spring.

All the grazing is done through agreements with other farmers on the island and these pastures help them to keep a good stock of animals over the summer period.

Crops and hayfields on Egilsay.

The summer is a particularly busy time for the warden, surveying the birds on the reserve.

Corncrakes are counted by the number of males calling, which they do mostly during the night.

Surveys (across the whole of Egilsay) are carried out between midnight and 3am on all suitable nights, such as those with no rain and light winds.

In addition, all 76 fields of the reserve need to be covered to count the other breeding birds such as skylark, snipe, lapwing, redshank, curlew and oystercatcher.

The numbers and breeding success of some species, such as Arctic tern, are monitored annually whilst other species are only monitored once every five years.

Other animals are also recorded such as otters, butterflies and the great yellow bumblebee, which is quite common in the garden at Onziebust.

A moth trap is also run here and the results passed to the County Recorder.

This year saw the first-ever Orkney record of the migrant striped hawk moth and the superb sight of a pod of about 12 killer whales making its way down the west coast of Egilsay towards Kirkwall Bay.

So even without corncrakes, Egilsay is a superb place to visit, especially in June and July when the display of wild flowers must be one of the finest in Orkney.

At this time, the air is filled with the sound of birdsong and on a velvet June evening with the snipe drumming and curlew calling, it is a marvellous place to be