The Hawaii of The North

The tiny Hebridean island of Tiree is apparently known as the Hawaii of the North. It's sunny, the locals are super friendly, the beaches are astonishing, and it's a surfer's paradise. It has other attractions as well...

We stayed on the Island last week, and what a time we had. The weather was stunning, and - unbeknown to the surfers - the wildlife as spectacular as the scenery. Was there a seabird that wasn't on the island? Our birder friend returned breathlessly from his latest outing, reeling off his latest sightings. Alas, we didn't actually see the elusive Corncrake, but we certainly heard their guttural Crex Crex. As for the bees... oh my days.

Beautiful Bombus 

Tiree is awash with a very rare bee, Bombus muscorum, the Moss carder bee. There were also more Red shanked carder (Bombus ruderarius) queens than you could shake a stick at - nationally scarce, needless to say in steep decline, and another bee for my bucket list. 

It was slightly early to see any emerging Great Yellow queens, alas. The Great Yellow, seventy years ago one of our most common bumblebees, is now pretty much a gonner in the UK, clinging on in northern Scotland. Very typically, they seem to be victims of climate change and habitat loss.

We also stumbled across a rare Marsh fritillary on one of our walks - what a beautiful butterfly! Populations are - guess what - also falling fast...

Why is a place like Tiree such a biodiversity hotspot? Its position next to the Gulf Stream helps. It's well situated for migrating birds, its winters are relatively warm (albeit windy!) and, increasingly importantly, summers are mild. Most of all though, are the complicated ecosystems on the island. 

Acidic peat bog and wetland meet areas of light, calcareous and low fertility soil, which owes its origins to the sand blown inland from the beaches. This is home to the machair, extraordinary and unique wildflower rich grassland.  There are extensive sand dunes, heathland, areas of dry grassland, lochs... all this on an island of only 30 square miles. About the only thing you won't find are trees.

Fantastic Flora 

This all means the botany is extraordinary, of course. You'll find acid soil loving plants like Lousewort nestling next to carpets of Kidney vetch and Milkwort (as below!), so typical of chalk downland. We were early to see the machair in full bloom, but it was obvious how spectacular it was going to be. The Birdsfoot trefoil and Marsh marigold were in full flower though - masses of yellow...

The traditional crofting farming methods still used on the island help enormously too. There is carefully managed low density grazing, for example. Where grassland isn't grazed over the summer there's a hay cut at the end of the season. There's very little in common with the kind of farming I see around us here in Somerset! 

Misanthropy

Although we had a fabulous time, I left with a sense of melancholy. This tiny jewel has been preserved by its inaccessibility and lack of commercial resources (other than the kelp so enthusiastically collected in the early 19th Century). There are under 800 permanent residents on the island, less than 20% of the peak population. I felt a great sense of community on the island, and a strong sense of the Tiree diaspora. In the summer there are maybe 1100 or so people there, maximum. Thank goodness, visitors are generally well behaved. Even so, the destruction they can cause is painfully obvious. Gates left open and dogs off leads are bad news for ground nesting birds, for example. There's  more detritus on the beaches as well, of course, despite everyone's efforts to clear it up.

On The Edge

Climate change is a more major threat. The usual operation of the Gulf Stream is essential for the biodiversity on Tiree.  The island is remarkably flat, and very exposed. More extreme winter gales and rising sea levels are going to be increasingly problematic. The species like the rare bumblebees there are likely to be wiped out as temperatures increase.

Megalithic settlers looking out across the Atlantic must have thought they were living at the edge of the world. Tiree is on a different kind of brink now. How fragile places like this are, and how careless we are with them.