Fri 30th May

After an early start yesterday with the Shelduck, it was a late night out and eventually getting to bed after 1.30 am, no not socialising or partying, but just helping out with the first of this year's Corncrake counts! The number here on Islay for a good few years was down in single figures, in fact it was as low as 4 calling males one year, but more recently with the "Corncrake scheme", numbers have increased. If memory serves me correctly there were almost 60 males calling last year. Although we were not able to cover the whole of Islay last night, we were almost on last year's total, and we will obviously get a better picture as further counts are carried out over the next few weeks. IKB