Steve Arlow
Well-known member
As a regular visitor to the island and the Obs I wouldn't have thought additional external lighting would be required to attract migrants.
The island has two lighthouses, North Light and South Light, which serve the island well and will, and do, act as beacons to migrants crossing the North Sea at night as an indicator of land.
The Obs Garden is already a magnet for migrants as it is the single largest stand of bushes and shrubs on the island. The garden has an enviable list of rarities to its credit and seeing the shear volume of thrushes, finches and so on drop into the garden some nights is amazing. These birds are not attracted by Observatory light to the garden, there has been very little external light from the Obs, but by the habitat. Even without the Obs this year the garden held Eastern Olivaceous and River Warblers at the same time which I think shows an already pretty good 'bang for your buck' for those lucky to be on the island at that time.
Most birds that arrive during the day will often navigate the island and many will undoubtably end up in the garden at some point, either feeding or to roost. The Pine Bunting in 2016 that was seen daily in the Bulls Park Crop, about a mile to the south, would return to the garden nightly to roost.
My experience of the location is that having an additional external light source at the Obs would serve little purpose and I think it would have probably been put in place with the last observatory when it was built if it was thought it would be of benefit. I'm not saying it is not something that may be considered in future plans for the new Obs its just probably not really needed.
There has been mention around how to build the new Obs and much has been said about using local materials however there are a whole host of issues with that.
The island is owned by the NT for Scotland and not the Obs, so you can't blast away to get the stone required, and it would need a lot of rocks to rebuild the shell of Obs. I think trying to obtain permission from the NT would be a dead end as much of the island is SSSI and the idea just wouldn't be entertained.
It would also take a lot of time to build using stone and using stone is not a magic bullet for preventing fire. The croft 'Pund' was stone built but it still went up in flames decades ago, it's the internal aspects of the building that would need to be made fireproof so the ideal solution is something similar to what was there before but with improved internal fire prevention that meets today's standards.
The idea for the new Obs will be that it will be at the same location and be of a similar sized footprint but with some changes in design born out of experience of the previous Obs, by new safety regulations and cost/affordability.
It will be challenge to get the new Obs in place for spring/summer 2021 and I look forward to once again enjoying the atmosphere of the Obs Lounge after big rare has been enjoyed by all.
The island has two lighthouses, North Light and South Light, which serve the island well and will, and do, act as beacons to migrants crossing the North Sea at night as an indicator of land.
The Obs Garden is already a magnet for migrants as it is the single largest stand of bushes and shrubs on the island. The garden has an enviable list of rarities to its credit and seeing the shear volume of thrushes, finches and so on drop into the garden some nights is amazing. These birds are not attracted by Observatory light to the garden, there has been very little external light from the Obs, but by the habitat. Even without the Obs this year the garden held Eastern Olivaceous and River Warblers at the same time which I think shows an already pretty good 'bang for your buck' for those lucky to be on the island at that time.
Most birds that arrive during the day will often navigate the island and many will undoubtably end up in the garden at some point, either feeding or to roost. The Pine Bunting in 2016 that was seen daily in the Bulls Park Crop, about a mile to the south, would return to the garden nightly to roost.
My experience of the location is that having an additional external light source at the Obs would serve little purpose and I think it would have probably been put in place with the last observatory when it was built if it was thought it would be of benefit. I'm not saying it is not something that may be considered in future plans for the new Obs its just probably not really needed.
There has been mention around how to build the new Obs and much has been said about using local materials however there are a whole host of issues with that.
The island is owned by the NT for Scotland and not the Obs, so you can't blast away to get the stone required, and it would need a lot of rocks to rebuild the shell of Obs. I think trying to obtain permission from the NT would be a dead end as much of the island is SSSI and the idea just wouldn't be entertained.
It would also take a lot of time to build using stone and using stone is not a magic bullet for preventing fire. The croft 'Pund' was stone built but it still went up in flames decades ago, it's the internal aspects of the building that would need to be made fireproof so the ideal solution is something similar to what was there before but with improved internal fire prevention that meets today's standards.
The idea for the new Obs will be that it will be at the same location and be of a similar sized footprint but with some changes in design born out of experience of the previous Obs, by new safety regulations and cost/affordability.
It will be challenge to get the new Obs in place for spring/summer 2021 and I look forward to once again enjoying the atmosphere of the Obs Lounge after big rare has been enjoyed by all.
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