Showing posts with label Wildlife Centre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wildlife Centre. Show all posts

Monday, 21 May 2012

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

Saturday, 16 April 2011

Thanks to the Port Charlotte Fire Brigade...



One of the big jobs that need to be done in preparation for opening the Centre on Good Friday is the filling of the big sealife tank and the marine Touch tank.  The Port Charlotte Fire Brigade have been good enough to help with this for many years now - they bring one of their pumps down to the sea and run a long hose up the beach and into the lab through a window.  It simply would not be possible to have these tanks without their help...  Todays crew was Kevin Wiggins and Paul Hannett.  Thanks guys...

Saturday, 11 December 2010

INHT - what it's all about....



Came across these shots from a couple of years ago - when the children came to help us celebrate the commissioning of the new Touch Tank at the Wildlife Centre in Port Charlotte....

Sunday, 7 November 2010

The calm before the storm


We had a lovely calm morning here on Islay this morning - but the weather forecast is for things to build up throughout the day until the winds reach above 50mph this evening, accompanied by very heavy rain.  I thought it might be interesting to take a little bit of "before and after" video of the burn that flows down the glen from the Gearach, down through Bruaich Jerich and past the Wildlife Centre.  The clips above show it at fairly normal autumn levels - but we would expect to see a significant rise over the next 24 hours if the forecast is correct - and it usually is....

I will try and get up into Bruaich Jerich again around lunchtime tomorrow and see what it looks like then....

Severe gales of the type that are forecast for this evening are completely normal for this time of year here.