Our 30th birthday party

We were a few months late, but we celebrated in style last night at our 30th birthday party, with a pot luck supper, a skills auction, a raffle - and of course a cake. Malcolm Ogilvie gave us a brief history of the Trust. George Jackson then presented Malcolm with a beautiful painting and a bottle of  Botanist gin as a thank you for his hard work and enthusiasm over the years. Thank you to everyone who contributed raffle prizes, food and wine and skills and photos - and to all those who turned up to make the evening a very special occasion to remember. We're looking forward to celebrating many more birthdays in years to come.
Becky

INHT Wildlife Centre is now open in Port Charlotte

Our Natural History Centre in Port Charlotte is now open from 10.30am-4.30pm Monday - Friday.  A warm welcome to Lorna Williamson who is joining our Centre manager Becky Williamson for the season.  They will be busy getting the displays and tanks up and running this week.

Our program of natural history rambles starts on June 1st.  These are short and very informal and easy going 'Rambles' (as opposed to 'Walks') led by Becky at a series of different locations around the island.  As the name suggests, they involve a great deal of stopping to peer at and identify all sorts of plants, birds, bugs, beetles, lichens and liverworts.  They are very easy going, a perfect day out for all ages, abilities and levels of natural history knowledge.  One of the fun things that Becky hopes that you will help her with is to create lists of all the different species that you find - which is actually great fun.

The rambles must be booked in advance, by phoning either the Centre (01496 850288) or mobile (07967 205229) at any time up to 1.00pm on the day.  Each ramble starts at 2.00pm and lasts for around two hours.  There is nothing strenuous involved, but please come prepared with waterproof footwear and clothing to suit the weather.

At Bunnahabhain: we meet beside the road before it turns down to the distillery.
At Kilchiaran: we meet by the chapel.  There is plenty of parking in the laybys.
At Sanaigmore: there's plenty of parking at the end of the road.
At Killinallan: meet where the road ends in a (usually) locked gate.
At Ardnave: beside the loch where the track turns left towards the farm.
At Kintra: in the signposted car park through the gate out of the farm yard.

Prices for the Rambles are the same as admission to the Centre - Adult £3, Concession £2, Child £1.50, Family £7.50

Easyfundraising for the INHT at Christmas

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/how-it-works/

Hello everyone...

We hope that you will follow the link above and help raise funds for the Islay Natural History Trust while you are shopping on-line, at absolutely no cost to you.  When you click through Easyfundraising to a retailer's website and purchase something on-line then the retailer makes a small donation to  the Trust.  It really couldn't be easier. 
A large number of well-known retailers are part of the scheme, M&S, eBay, Vodafone, John Lewis, Boden, Groupon, Tesco, the National Lottery, GAP, Bank of Scotland  etc. etc etc.

Imagine how much more fun buying all those Christmas presents would be knowing that you are raising money for your favourite Natural History Trust...

Hope you can help...
Best regards
Carl Reavey

Our Fish at the Centre



Sea Scorpion



Ballan Wrasse

The two fish  that Paul brought in at the start of the season are thriving in the big marine aquarium.  Shortly after these photos were taken this afternoon they were given a very large meal of shrimp caught in the sea outside the Centre.

INHT Species Lists

INHT Species Lists

We are grateful to David Redshaw for taking us another big step forward with our Biological Records database.  David has broken down the lists into the categories above - which means that it is now far easier to look up the records for particular species.  

You can access this either via the link above or through the INHT website.

David has also come up with and implemented the excellent idea of entering the number of records we have on file for each species so that this can be easily seen.  Obviously, while we are keen for everyone to send us records of absolutely everything - the fewer records we have for that species the more important your contribution is likely to be!!

As we have previously mentioned, the Biological Database is very much a work in progress - and while we have not finished yet this is certainly a major move in the right direction.

Please keep records of your finds coming in.  We look forward to many more records in the future.

Carl

Small tortoiseshell hatch at the Centre.

We had a big hatch of the Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) chrysalids today.  We let them go outside the Centre where they flew off during what was probably the hottest and sunniest day of our 'summer' so far...
Carl

Froglets at the Centre

Lots of tadpoles are metamorphosing at the moment...  Common frog (Rana temporaria).  Some are being released in the ponds behing George and megan's house at Shorefield, others near to the Distillery pond in Port Charlotte.

INHT "Nature Rambles" programme announced

Owl TV is back - Cheers Michael!!

Many thanks to Michael Thompson at Bruichladdich for once again reaching out beyond the call of duty to get Owl TV back on the air.  We will not bore you with the long and involved story about the various technical and operational issues involved but patience and hard work have  finally paid off and we are rolling again...  Suffice to say that the box of tricks controlling it all was probably hit by lightning...

Check it out out...  Owl TV

She appears to be incubating - hopefully on some eggs!!  We would be grateful if anyone who sees her get up for a stretch could let us know how many...

Carl

Common Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus)

Photographed through the glass of the big marine aquarium at the Visitor Centre.  The Centre will open for the summer on 23rd May.

Becky scoping 'The Walks Programme'

The Trust is going to embark on a new idea this season - offering a series of 'Nature Rambles' or walks around the island on Monday and Friday afternoons from when we open on 23rd May.  Becky has been scoping out some of the best locations for natural history and we will be announcing a full programme soon - please watch this space!!

Common sunstar - (Crossaster papposus)

Photographed in the sea life tank at the INHT Centre in Port Charlotte this is the ventral surface of a Common sun star.  Sun stars are omnivorous, they will eat pretty much anything organic they come across, ranging from plant life to other starfish, which are eaten whole.

Some Natural History Records from Crystal Maw

Aphodius sphacelatus

Belted beauty moth 8/4/11 Ardnave dunes NR734296
Silpha atrata 9/4/11 Gruinart grassy area behind RSPB office NR676276
Oiceoptoma thoracica 17/4/11 Heathery slope above Aonan nan Uan NR763426
Adder 17/4/11 In dry grass near Bagh an Da Dhorius NR787409
Aphodius sphacelatus 11/4/11 100s in sheep dung in fields NR6940
Geotrupes stercorarius 5/4/11 Glenastle valley, amongst heather NR455286

Thanks Crystal

Beadlet anemone (Actinia equina)

Thanks Paul!! - Scorpion Fish (Scorpaena Porcus)

Port Charlotte fisherman Paul Rennie and his crew have brought us pehaps the best collection of sea creatures we have ever had for our tanks to get us going this year.  Many thanks to him.  The tanks look really good because the water is so clear.  Getting clear water for the tanks is very difficult as there is usually some turbulence near the shore but we certainly seem to have hit the jackpot this year...

This spectacular specimen is a Scorpion fish (Scorpaena porcus).  Their spines are poisonous and will give you a nasty sting if you tread on one...

Please help the INHT by using www.easyfundraising.org.uk

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/

It is really easy to further support the Trust by making your online purchases with well-known retailers such as Amazon, John Lewis, eBay and Tesco through easyfundraising.org.uk  It costs you nothing, but every time you make a purchase by this means the retailer donates a small percentage of the sale price to the INHT.  All you have to do is click on the link above and follow the simple on-screen instructions to support the Islay Natural History Trust....
We would greatly appreciate your help with this.
Thank you for your continued support
Carl Reavey
Chairman of the Management Committee

Please visit Islay Natural History Trust on Facebook

Perhaps you would like to leave something on our wall?

We have a great new website!!

http://www.islaynaturalhistory.org/

Further to my post below we are very pleased to be able to announce that our new website is now live. 

We trust you will like the new layout.  We particularly hope that visitors to the site will peruse the Biological Records database.  We are very keen to develop this aspect of our work and encourage contributions... particularly of the commoner species...

Thanks again Ron...!

New INHT website - Cheers Ron!!

We are hoping that the Trust will be able to point  folk to our new website before very much longer.  We are indebted to our friend and benefactor Ron Steenvorden of http://www.islayinfo.com/ for building it for us - he has put in a great deal of time and effort and we appreciate his assistance.

Ron has built the site through his web-design company Braveheart.  Check it out through the link below.

Braveheart Web Design

Much of the work that has gone into the new Trust site has been aimed toward our long term goal of making our Biological Records database more user friendly, bringing it up to date and building a framework that will enable everyone with even a passing interest in Islay's natural history to submit records simply and easily.  We currently have over 130,000 records available on-line and there is a further major revision on the way. 



Off Fishing

Paul Rennie leaves Port Charlotte pier to go to the fishing earlier this morning.  Paul was a great help to us at INHT last season, providing us with sea creatures for our aquariums and the Touch Tank.

We have had about two inches of snow overnight in Port Charlotte and snow showers are set to continue through the day.