Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People

Wild Mull: A Natural History of the Island and its People
	Cover Page
	Half Title Page
	Title Page
	Copyright
	Contents
	Dedication
	Foreword
	Introduction
	ONE: The Fairest of the Isles
		The Mull ‘national anthem’
		The nature of nature
		Wild Mull
		A celebrity isle
		The evolving landscape
		Mull’s ‘magnets’
		Back to the future
	TWO: The Land that Holds the Life
		Seeing the past in colour
		A commitment to understanding
		A fondness for rocks?
		Reading the landscape
		The bedrock of life
		The objective view
		Starting to come together
		As old as time
		Mull’s magnetic personality
		Anyone can be a ‘Mull’ geologist
		Mull under the ice
		Life after the ice
		Final pieces of the jigsaw
	THREE: People and the Shaping of Mull
		The epic begins
		Leaving the Garden
		The loss of innocence
		Accident or design?
		The strandloopers
		A natural urge
		The winds of change
		Natural history’s ‘Dark Age’
		Cultivation and husbandry
		Into the ‘modern’ world
		Slashing and burning
		The sublime to the ridiculous
		Farming arable in adversity
		The impact of poverty
		Bracken… blight… Bracken
		Black cattle and white sheep
	FOUR: Invasions, Extinctions and Mull’s Own ‘Gene Genie’
		The ebb and flow of life
		Degrees of ‘naturalness’
		Comings and goings
		A warm welcome!
		How to make a deer…
		… and more deer
		The fox and the rabbit
		Hare today?
		The march of the mustelids
		The Pine Marten paradox
		Oversexed and over here
		A phantom species
		More than just the animals
		Beauty and the beast
		When domestic meets wild…
		All change
		A ‘wild’ biodiversity?
	FIVE: Fangs, Fins and Fur
		Making some connections
		Small is beautiful
		Our largest beast
		Too much of a good thing?
		Fire-fanged demons, and handsome interlopers
		Otters – the Mull Badgers
		Matters of life and death
		When the going gets tough… the tough get going
		A passing phase
		The person of the mud and other beasts
		Galleon goats?
		The missing millions
		Mammals in the air
		Care and consideration – the world of reptiles and amphibians
		Colonising the lochs
		Running the rivers
		Watery worlds
	SIX: Raptors of Eagle Island
		The hunters of Mull
		Lords of the Isle
		‘The eagle with the sunlit eye’
		The eagle has landed
		Rubbing along together
		Golden Eagle – ‘the true bird’
		The white hawk
		Best supporting actor
		Sparrowhawk
		‘An owl is mostly air’
		Long-eared Owl
		Short-eared Owl
		Barn Owl
		Tawny Owl
	SEVEN: In Their Element – the Seabirds
		Behind the shipping forecast
		At one with the sea…
		Treshnish and the open seas
		The ‘tubenoses’
		Humans – and lack of humans
		An honorary pelagic
		Underwater-flying auks
		The gangsters in the north
		We don’t know what we don’t know
		Simply ducks
		The loonatic fringe
		… and so to gulls
	EIGHT: Extraordinary Landbirds
		Flights of fancy
		Less is more
		The rarity paradox
		When is a bird not a bird?
		Roding in the gloaming
		Standing out from the crowd
		What’s going on?
		The bird in a burn
		Mistaken identity?
		Prized pies
		The ‘Bread-and-butter Bird’
		The Highland game
		Beachcombing
		And so to Crex
	NINE: The Kingdom of the Celtic Rainforest
		Woodlands’ ancient magic
		The ‘other’ rainforest
		The conservation obligation
		Lichen, lichen, everywhere…
		Two’s company, three’s a lichen
		Beauties and the beasts
		The woodland wizards
		The short life of a paddock-stool
		A fungal identity parade
		The fungi/food quandary
		Bryophytes
	TEN: Plants of Place and Purpose
		A culture of flowers
		Creating an identity
		Immigrants and settlers
		Expansion and domination
		Too much of a good thing
		A confusion of orchids
		Ferns form places
		Down to the sea
		Making the most of machair
		Grassland to moorland
		Getting wetter
		Higher and higher
		The national flower
	ELEVEN: Life Beyond the Strandline
		Look into the sea
		The intertidal
		Foraging and farming
		The romance of the creel
		Murder most foul
		Why conservation?
		The Puffing Pig’s burden
		Who’s watching whom?
		Life, death and discovery
		Identity parade
		Really common?
		Warming, cooling and capture
	TWELVE: Beautiful Beasties
		Our beating heart
		Feeling the buzz
		An unknown quantity
		There’s money in dung (beetles)
		Mythical creatures
		Rare and gentle things
		As if from nowhere…
		Moths to the flame
		Can’t fly? Take the boat
		Cops and robbers
		Enter the dragons
		Damsels in distress? Not on Mull
		Give blood for biodiversity
	POSTSCRIPT: The Forever Future
		An island without people
		The new normal
		The old normal
		An island in harmony
		No island is an island
		All change
		Indescribable intoxication
		Wildlife and people: a perfect symbiosis?
		A challenge is laid down
		Where the wild is
		Weaving the final threads
		Isle of Mull, Scotland
	Acknowledgements and Photographers’ Credits
	Bibliography
		Historical texts consulted
		Other useful texts
	Useful Contacts for Further Information
	Watching and Photographing Wildlife on Mull
	Species Referred to in the Text
	Index
	Back Cover