Next to May, the beginning of September is my favourite time on Steep Holm. It’s rather like having the house to yourself after a rowdy party; the blissful silence after the last guest has gone. By the end of August, the vast majority of the gulls will have packed up and headed for the mainland - it’s not an uncommon sight, about now, to see them congregating on freshly ploughed fields like a flock of rooks. They are clearly having a good time - and so shall I!
The trip across is smooth and even, the sea flat calm with no wind and low, unthreatening clouds. During the summer months, there is usually a crowd of gulls on the pebble beach looking askance at our arrival and then taking off in a wheeling, complaining, squawking mob. This time it is all very good mannered . . . and quiet. Unsurprisingly with this wet summer, the island is ‘very green’ and the paths healthily grassed - but tidy; wardens Chris and Jenny have spent a long weekend with the mower before our arrival getting things straight. It feels warm and still as we climb the zigzag path through the sycamore wood. Because the prevailing winds are usually from the west, this part of the island is the most sheltered and we can feel the warmth given off by the rock of the eastern cliffs. So the island usually manages a warm welcome to its guests!
Where the cliff path turns to make its final zag to the top, the wardens had just installed a light trap (borrowed from my friend David Agassiz) to determine what moths are inhabiting the island during late summer.
Beside the path that circumvents the top of the island, the brambles are loaded with blackberries providing the same good picking as last year - but small comfort for such a difficult season.
By late morning, the sun makes an appearance and the still air encourages butterflies onto the wing; they dib and dab from flower to flower over the brambles: Red Admirals, Painted Ladies and Small Whites. Every hour or so, the air is filled with instalments of swallows pitching and swooping over the island scrub, gathering food and energy at the start of their long African migration. This is a magical time of year.
A little later, Jenny tells me that the Agassiz moth trap has caught seven Large Yellow Underwing moths and one unknown. (David Agassiz was to later tell me the unknown moth is a moderately rare Large Tabby - island naturalist Tony Parsons came across one in Steep Holm’s Parsons’ Cave in 1992!)
Up on the top of the island, at Summit Battery, Mark Harris is working hard removing the corroded cast-iron stay plates that were used to anchor the battery’s 6-inch naval guns during WW2. Each plate is bolted in place and set in concrete. Once the concrete is hammered away, many of the bolts can be unscrewed with little evident corrosion. Mark has already cleared the plates from Garden Battery - he tells me there is huge variation in the quality of workmanship with some plates being held by only a few bolts. Just as well the guns were never fired in anger!
Howard Smith
For full booking information please visit the Steep Holm web site: www.steepholm.org.uk or telephone the Booking Secretary on 01934 522125.
Steep Holm trips for 2011: September: 17. October: 1, 15.
