I’m not even sure where to start. The wonderful sights and sounds. The sea air. The wind (oh my gosh the wind!) and the rain. The birds and beasts. The wonder of this Scottish island.
Perhaps I should start with a title explanation, for I’m talking about the beautiful Isle of Mull which I was very lucky to visit in mid-May 2022. In the days (maybe weeks?) before the trip, I had a daily Twitter obsession – searching for photos of the wildlife we might see on the island. My search phrase was “mull birds” and, guess what, one of the top Twitter search results was an account called “LarryBird’sMullet” 😂
So I got used to ignoring this spoof account based on a basketball player’s hairstyle, though it will always have a special place in my heart and it will always remind me of this holiday. Instead, I stared in wonder at the wildlife photographers’ recent sights. The images were incredible: white-tailed eagles, golden eagles, otters, short-eared owls, divers, puffins. I was so excited!
So this is a brief insight into my wild experiences on the island. It may not seem so brief, but, trust me, I could’ve written more!
A bitta context
Let’s take it from the top: Mull is located in the inner hebrides. It’s parallel with Dundee and is north of the Isle of Arran, Islay and Jura. It’s south of Rum and Skye and covers about 340 square miles. According to 2020 estimates, it has a population of 3,000 people; travel is mainly via a small network of single-track roads with passing places (they were fun!) The landscape is a mixture of white sand bays, granite crags, sea lochs, mountains and machair.
I finished a book about the Scottish islands while I was away and something from it really stuck with me. The book is called Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey by Madeleine Bunting. In her last chapter, she writes about St Kilda in the outer hebrides and quotes a Greek poet called Constantine Cavafy:
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
(Love of Country, p. 284)
The context of this quote in the book is the cancellation of Bunting’s second scheduled trip to the island and, though I might’ve totally taken this out of context, these three lines really resonated with me while on Mull. The island dealt us some unexpected treats and, with the same hand, cancelled our boat trip to see all of the seabirds on the Treshnish Islands due to the wind and swell. A cheeky temptress!
Background noise
Some of those unexpected treats included all of the ‘background noise’. The things that I immediately got totally used to: not hearing traffic, the sound of the swallows nesting in the cottage roof, the long hours of daylight.
I realised about halfway through the holiday that I’d started to take for granted all of the bluebells that flourished wherever we walked – I had thought bluebells really only prospered in woodland, but here they all were, embedded within the ferns on the craggy landscape.
The wheatears as well; they were everywhere. The males looked particularly smart in their summer gear. All grey heads and black eye stripes. There was an abundance of other birds on our walks and around the cottage too, including: meadow pipits, wrens (again, everywhere!), goldfinches, hooded crows, wood warblers and stonechats.
Vummmm
^My written impression of a bird near the cottage… Needs improvement!
I’m not going to bore you with all of the more ‘special’ wildlife encounters so I’ll focus on a couple, including this one. After an evening walk to a local crag (Treshnish Point), my partner and I heard a sort of ‘humming’ noise. I had initially dismissed it as ‘just one of those noises’ but realised quite quickly that this remote point in the north west of Mull probably didn’t have as many of ‘those types’ of noises as mainland Britain!
My instinct was to just look up at the sky and, to my surprise, I saw a small bird with a long beak flying up into the air. It then stopped and did what I can only describe as a ‘vibration’ back down. It was certainly the cause of this humming noise.
I was honestly flabbergasted. I searched through the internal catalogue and my brain spat absolutely nothing back out. I found just enough phone signal to send the video to my family to see if they had any thoughts. Then, my partner asked if it could be a snipe – turns out it was! And it wasn’t just a snipe. It was a male snipe vibrating his tail feathers in a flying display!
Big birds
Mull is known to be one of the best places to see our biggest birds of prey: golden eagles and white-tailed eagles. The varying heights of the complex landscape can sometimes mess with your mind: is that giant bird circling over that mountain/hill/crag actually a buzzard?
Sometimes, it’s only when you realise what other creatures they’re next to that you understand their actual scale. We were lucky enough to see both of these eagles from a distance. On one occasion, a golden eagle was chasing a kestrel over Treshnish Point. We saw it dive from height (impressive in itself) and swoop towards the smaller bird of prey. Kestrels have a wingspan of only 65-80cm, buzzards 115-130cm and golden eagles 190-225cm! We saw this same golden eagle (presumably it’s the same one?) from our cottage almost every evening.
But did you know that they’re not actually our largest bird of prey? This award goes instead to the white-tailed eagle with an enormous wingspan of 190-240cm. We saw the huge wings of one of these beasts near the white sands and turquoise sea of Calgary Bay. It flew over us with it’s huge, broad wings as it rode the wind. Its scale was also clear when we spotted some greater black-backed gulls (150-165cm wingspan) chasing another white-tailed eagle at Loch a’ Chumhainn near Dervaig. You didn’t even need to see the binoculars for that one!
Corncrake actuelle
So I’d be lying to you if I said I’d seen a corncrake, but we were lucky enough to hear some when we went on a daytrip to Iona. Iona is known best for its abbey – the final resting place of St Columba. It’s a key destination for pilgrims and it was by far the busiest place we visited.
It’s also known for its efforts to protect and support corncrakes. The corncrake is a largely nocturnal that likes to hide. Corncrakes are also only with us from mid-April to August/September, spending the winter months in Mozambique.
It isn’t impossible to see a corncrake, but when I say they like to hide I mean they like to hide. They stay undercover in the island’s reedbeds and grasses and only the very lucky visitor will see one hop out into the open. That said, one thing that you are much more likely to encounter is the male corncrake’s call – and that’s exactly what we enjoyed. I was listening to an audio guide for the abbey when I suddenly heard the unmistakable croaking of a corncrake. It was so close and yet invisible to the naked eye.
Artspiration
I’d like to end with my other passion. Trips away always get the creative juices flowing and Mull didn’t disappoint in the slightest.
In fact, the wildlife encounters I experienced have already started to inspire my art. I have some additions to the bird list I’d like to paint/draw/create: siskins, turnstones, stonechats, whinchats, whimbrels, eider ducks and no doubt many more that I’ve forgotten…
The landscape as well – so many photos of hidden woodlands, white sandy bays, black granite crags and, of course, the sea that I’d like to etch onto paper. I’ve already started to do this, but it’s easy to let inspiration slip once you return to reality. That said, I’m confident these memories won’t disappear in a hurry.
If you’d like to find out more…
I’d highly recommend the following resources if you’d like to find out more about visiting the Isle of Mull, along with it’s wildlife and history (oh and the food too!)
- Argyll Bird Club
- D. Sexton and P. Snow, Birdwatching on Mull and Iona: A Pocket Guide with Maps
- M. Unwin, RSPB Spotlight Eagles
- Mull Birds
- Mull & Iona Food Trail
- Visit Scotland
- @PeteWalkden1973 (Wildlife Photographer)
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 
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