Sunday 25th August, we took a day trip to Stornoway.
Sailing on the Calmac Ferry, a great day out with family and friends. We knew we were in for a good day when we saw lots of common dolphins even before the ferry had left . We saw loads of Common Dolphins and Porpoise, Minke Whales, White-Beaked, Bottle-Nose, Risso and possible breaching Humpbacks away in the distance. Some great bird sightings too – Arctic Tern, Pomarine Skua, Bonxie and the highlight three separate sightings of White Tailed Sea Eagle, including an encounter close to the ferry as one came in to try and take a gull off the water ! All cetaceans recorded on the excellent Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust sightings app.
25th August also marked 8 months of the North West Highlands Beach Clean Group
Collectively we have removed 10.174 tonnes of rubbish from Highland beaches in those 8 months. This months total was 463 KGs. Fantastic work by all the volunteers – this month 43 beach cleans took place and 50 volunteers took part. The 8 months to date 362 beaches have been cleaned and 522 volunteers got involved. The North West Highlands Beach Clean Group welcomes new groups and individuals to join our Facebook group at anytime,
Friday 30th August was Climate Strike week 299!
Great result for Rosebank oilfield legal challenge this week. It means that going forward it is highly likely that all future oil and gas development will now have to take account of all climate impacts from CO2 produced over the whole lifetime of the project including the Greenhouse Gasses from the burning of the oil and gas extracted. These emissions were due to be massive the same as 56 coal fired power stations running for a year or the annual Greenhouse Gas emissions of the world’s 28 poorest countries. No room for any new oil and gas projects if we wish to stay within 1.5C of global warming.