RSPB - Our work here on Coll

The RSPB manages 1075 ha of mire, bog, machair and dunes on the Isle of Coll. The reserve is a key site in the Corncrake Recovery Programme and a haven for wintering geese, breeding waders and farmland birds. Other wildlife includes otters, Irish Lady's Tresses and Great Yellow Bumblebees. This rich biodiversity reflects the island’s low intensity farming practices, which we are working to maintain.

Corncrakes Coll’s corncrakes breed on in-bye fields. We have already more than quadrupled their population on the reserve, to around 60 calling males each year. Small adjustments to farming practice made in partnership with local farmers are largely responsible for this success. These include providing early cover, mowing in August rather than July, and adjusting the arable rotation system. We are continuing to refine our techniques and share our knowledge. In 2012 there were 103 calling male corncrake on Coll, spread from Cornaigbeg down to Chrossapol. The best time to see corncrake is the last week of April and the first few weeks of May, don't expect to come in July and see one! Other birds of the in-bye fields that benefit from corncrake conservation include skylark, twite and reed bunting, while the fields host important wintering populations of barnacle and Greenland white-fronted geese. These important habitats protect such notable species as sand lizard, belted beauty moth and the extremely rare Short-necked Oil Beetle Meloe brevicollis. The reserve’s upland habitats include heather moorland, bog and unimproved grassland. We are working to maintain these for their plant life, birds of prey and passerines such as twite.

Scottish Oil Beetle Hunt 2013

Join the Scottish oil beetle hunt in 2013! Black oil beetles, Violet oil beetles and very rare Short-necked oil beetles can all be found in Scotland from March through to early July. Find out how to identify them with the new Scottish oil beetle ID guide.
Oil beetles are incredible insects, with a facinating lifecycle closely tied to the fates of solitary bees and flower-rich meadows.

Three species are known from Scotland including the Violet oil beetle (Meloe violaceus), the Black oil beetle (Meloe proscarabaeus) and the very rare Short-necked oil beetle (Meloe brevicollis) which is only known from three areas in the British Isles: south-west England, the east coast of Ireland and the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland! So far on Coll Short-necked oil bettle has been found in Chrossapol, Totronald, Gallanach and Sorrisdale dunes.

If you find an oil beetle please record it via the Buglife website or let the RSPB Warden know Tel: 01879 230301 or ben.jones@rspb.org.uk  A record needs to have a date, location (with grid referance), name of recorder and preferably a picture to confirm the species. Good hunting!

Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, and we are actively working to save Britain’s rarest little animals, everything from bees to beetles, worms to woodlice and jumping spiders to jellyfish.