Rabbit Island

Rabbit Island from the coast. At low Spring tide a sand causeway forms briefly. Thanks to Scottish Sea Kayaking for this photo.

On Rabbit Island I saw: Wild Thyme, Bluebells just beginning to make seed, their heads turning skyward; paley blue starry Squill, rich purple Violets woven through the grass, egg yolk yellow Bird's Foot Trefoil, Sea Plantain, abundant soft yellow Primrose, masses of Bog Bean in the squishy marshy areas. Bog bean is a useful herbal plant and can be used in brewing beer. Maybe someone once cropped it. Little clues to island life Who came here? Why? I heard the island was once a rabbit farm for the Mackay Clan Chief. But I see no sign of rabbits now.

Blue Squill and buttercups. Photo by Pen

On the banks leading up to the bogland pools are the sickly yellow rosettes of Common Butterwort leaves with their elegant violet flowers held above. The plant can’t get enough nutrients from the land it grows on so captures insects as a side dish. Those sticky leaves attract insects and then roll up and trap them as a carnivorous dinner. These plants are fierce! The elegant blue flowers held above are a lure to the unwary. This little beauty is a predator, it’s a beast!

Common Butterwort. Photo thanks to Scottish Botanist

I found three types of Orchids, they were so astonishingly  rampant that the thing that kept them feeling special was their beauty. There were flocks of Butterfly Orchid, easy to identify. By their shape and glowing amethyst jewel colours, I think that the other two were Pyramidical and Early Purple Orchid and maybe a hybrid of the two.

Butterfly Orchid. Photo thanks to Scotlink

Walking through the island took me through a wonderful diversity of grasses and sedges. Pearly grey Marram Grass is colonising the dunes. It looks superb with yellow Primroses interspersed. If you are used to Primrose in shady lush woodland edges it is almost shocking to see them flourishing, growing in sand. They seem to be enjoying the shelter of the tough silvery blue grass. I suppose Primrose seed tumbles down the slope of the dune and gets halted by the grass clumps.

Primrose. Photo thanks to Woodland Trust.

Climb above the zone where Marram and Primrose are stabilising the ground and there is Yorkshire Fog and Sheep’s Fescue and many more I don’t know. In the boggy areas there are little tiny sedges with tufted bottle brush tops and floating clouds of cotton grass.

On the tops there’s Heather, not a lot and not yet flowering. Around rocky outcrops there are, in great abundance, many tiny plants and lichens I don't know the names of but loved to take a moment to get closer to. This is my first solo island and it’s nice. It’s hard to keep my footing I’m so engrossed. Because I'm alone I can go at my own pace. I can crunch down and wonder at such a planty paradise.

Sand spit divides two parts of Rabbit Island. Photo by Pen

I am not a naturalist but I believe the wide range of habitats, from shoreline to peaty hill top provides opportunities for a wide diversity of plants in an unusually small area. And there are no rabbits. Or sheep. When I explore I am a detective. I don’t do any research first. So I can walk the island with antennae out: who was here before? How was this created?

It turns out I’m right, the rabbits were wiped out by myxi and the sheep were taken off in the eighties. There hasn’t been grazing for 50 years. And that I'm sure has made for such a plant heaven. It's a conservationist’s dream.

The rare little Scottish Primrose is found here too. I only saw the leaves. Photo by Wild Flower finder.

Dock is not a well-loved plant. An arable field gone to dock is a cruel thing. It’s an eyesore of urban dereliction. Coarse leaves blotched with rust colour offend the eye. But some of the smaller forms are quite beautiful. The flowers are held aloft on graceful arching stems that move together in the slightest breeze. They make a graceful mazey mesh of strawberry pink suffused with sunset glow quite as pretty as the much-praised haze of bluebells under new beech leaves. Of course I’m onto it because I’m looking for the tiny clutches of wild sorrel, catch it before it has formed flowering spikes. That’s for dinner.

I’m after glossy rosettes of wild sorrel leaves, a bit of chickweed, some goosegrass, a few dandelion leaves and plenty of nettle tops. They make a good fresh addition to my supper. Some people may think it eccentric and even puritanical to eat such things. Maybe a penance. But I eat it because I like it. It transforms a bag of Tesco's "baby spinach", bland and inoffensive as it is, into something sparky and flavoursome. Try it, it won't kill you. You might like it.  And it turns out to be really good for you.

My foraging swag bag. There's raspberry in this one for a tea infusion. Photo by Pen

The list of benefits from eating nettles is crazy. Among other things a government publication notes: "Stinging nettle is high in amino acids, protein, flavonoids, and bone-building minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Nettle contains vitamins and minerals that can help keep your bones strong. Stinging nettle is one of the greatest sources of vitamin K. Vitamin K helps to maintain bone health by promoting osteoblastic (bone production and strengthening) activity. Boron is abundant in stinging nettle and is utilized to keep calcium levels in human bodies at a healthy level. Boron-rich stinging nettle can help to delay the onset of osteoporosis." Well that's a bit late for me. I already have flourishing Osteoporosis. I just like the taste of it and it is quite nice to have a purpose to my wanderings.

Back to you. Looking across the Dunes and back to the mountains. Photo by Pen

Rabbit Island is so called because once the Mackay clan "farmed" rabbits here to provide meat for the table. I saw no sign of them. On the mainland campsites rabbits were doing so well that I wonder whether local cats and dogs and dogs are scared of them. There were plenty of Black Backed Gulls though. They mobbed me when I came near their high point and sent me trotting back down to my tent on the beach to cook my supper.

My tent and boat looked very small from above. Photo by Pen

Nice bit of a view from the tent...Photo by Pen

Will the tide float my boat away when it comes up in the night? Photo by Pen

Had to go back up the hill to catch the sunset. Photo by Pen

By the way...

I later found a report by members of the North Sutherland Wildlife Group: ‘the Rabbit Islands carries “one of very few dunes on the Sutherland coast currently free from grazing throughout the year” and he added, “the resulting superb condition and wide range of species on the ungrazed Ammophila-fixed dune on the inner island [is] the most important single feature”,’ (Ferreira 1995, site 3.3.6).

https://nswg.org.uk/5-go-to-rabbit-islands/