Wild Island, a Year in the Hebrides by Jane Smith (2016)

I read about this book in Country Living (oh, I miss being able to buy British Magazines!) and ordered it in January 2020. In her book, Jane mentions Colonsay's Spring Festival, so I looked it up.  It sounded so wonderful I was beginning to think how nice it would be to visit when the world changed and all foreign travel was off. Maybe next year ...

In paintings and words Jane portrays a year on Oronsay, a small Hebridean island farmed by the RSPB for the benefit of wildlife. She originally worked for the BBC and National Geographic as a wildlife film-maker, then changed direction, studying painting and printing. 

 

Apart from the pictures, which are wonderful, she also has a way with words, painting a picture of life on the island and of all the creatures living there.

Mike and Val are the RSPB-managers on Oronsay, living there with their helpers and their dogs. You get to Oronsay by driving across from Colonsay at low tide, a hazardous undertaking at all times, and especially in bad weather or at night.

"On Oronsay I set to work, trying to understand what makes this place so rich in wildlife. The main conservation workers on the farm are the cattle and sheep, which shape the wildlife habitat by their grazing. There are different mouths for different jobs. Black-face sheep crop the field grass short so that choughs can feed, while Hebridean sheep have narrower mouths, and graze the rough hill-ground. Luing cattle grab mouthfulls of long grass in the wetter fields. As they poach up the ground with their feet, they create nesting hummocks for lapwings" (I looked up Luing cattle: they are a breed originally developed on the island of Luing)

 

" At first I find them (the seals) impossible to draw. They look like enormous slugs, galumphing around the shore. Shapeless. I remind myself that they are mammals with the same number of arm and leg bones as me, but in different proportions. They're like humans in sleeping bags. I imagine a skeleton hidden under all that blubber, and it helps".

 

This is a beautiful book to cheer you up when spring won't come. A great gift for anyone with an interest in art, The Hebrides, birds etc. Jane's website can be found here