A rubbish day

A day of note yesterday.  A rubbish day. The ever adaptable May Princess came out to take off several tons of rubbish that we have been accumulating over the last year or so. Jeremy and myself have been sorting through outbuildings, cottages and the office plus the beaches and the rest of the island to gather together things that are not needed. Islands are terrible for for the accumulation of rubbish as it is often easier to just leave it lying there rather than do something about it. We do our best recycle as much as we can so about half of this rubbish was scrap metal which was sorted, scrapped and will go back into circulation.

Alec, Kevin and Fiona turned up in work gear and we just about filled the whole of the back of the boat. As ever there was a few items retrieved by hawk-eye re users who just couldn't bear the thought of something useful going off the island (tennis balls Polly?)

 About half of the rubbish came from the Lowlight where the Isle of May Bird Observatory is based. The redevelopment there has meant that decades worth of rubbish has been cleared out of cupboards and stores. The upgrading of the facilities also meant saying good bye to one of the islands oldest residents - Elsie - the chemical toilet. Many of Scotland's top ornithologists have sat on this throne (and a quite a few of its worst!) so it was with sadness that the current Lowlight residents (all long standing/sitting users) put her onto the May Princess. The only worry is what will they do when the new flush toilet runs out of water (always likely on the island)?

Of course it wasn't all sitting around. The light easterlies brought in another cracking female red-backed shrike and this little beauty, a red-breasted flycatcher.

The girls, who are much tougher than the chaps on the island,  decided to celebrate such a red-letter day by having a swim. Afterwards, it took several hours for their lips to turn back from blue to pink but apparently it was still worth it.