Deserted by humans, birds flock to Forth’s fortress islands
The pandemic had just hit as Cal Flyn was finishing Islands Of Abandonment at home in Scotland.
She admitted: “I accidentally wrote a timely book. Social media memes about how nature was somehow reclaiming the streets started to emerge.
“Although that was slightly over-claiming how much can happen in a few short days, it did show how closely the wild elements do already live alongside us and how they might reclaim these places if they really were to be abandoned. The book turned out to be a bit eerily relevant.”
It has already happened on Scots soil. Close to Edinburgh, the abandoned Forth Islands of Inchkeith and Inchmickery are prime examples.
Cal said that, despite their proximity to built-up areas, they have become “significant sea bird breeding and seal haul-out sites”.
Inchkeith, once a garrison, fortress and prison was, until the 1940s, habited by just one seabird, the eider. Today it is the cacophonous home of razorbills, puffins, guillemots, greyscale kittiwakes, winter wrens, rock pigeons and barn swallows. Elder grows in thickets inside its roofless buildings.
There’s a similar story at the Five Sisters of West
Lothian and its other oil shale spoil heaps or “bings”, created in the 19th Century when Scotland was the world’s biggest oil producer.
When production stopped in the 1960s, these bare waste hills, barren of any kind of soil, began to sprout life.
Edinburgh University researcher Barbra Harvie later recorded more than 350 plant species on the bings, more than on Ben Nevis, including eight nationally rare species of moss and lichen. Cal said: “There were foxes, hares, skylarks and rare invertebrates finding a safe haven on this wasteland.”
Close to her Orkney home, on the island of Swona – abandoned in 1974 – she found cattle that had been turned loose and had become so feral she was in danger of being trampled.
They were surviving in stable numbers like herds of wild horses or elephants; the males vying for dominance, the losers ostracised.
The island was alive with bird species – fulmars, kittiwakes and bonxies (great skuas), along with a large colony of Arctic terns.
Cal added: “Every time I went to a new place on the island I was threatened by a different species. There’s no space for humans any more.”
Our family had some wonderful news last week, with Andy and Kim welcoming their fourth child into the world. Being a granny is one of the greatest joys in life, so I’m delighted there’s another little baby to spoil. But I’ll have to wait for lockdown to end to get my first cuddle!