Life on Oronsay with a year in the Hebrides

Once the centre of the major sea route between Scotland and Ireland, the small, remote island of Oronsay has been inhabited by humans for 5,000 years.

Columba landed there in AD 63, the Vikings in the 800s, and the Lords of the Isles founded an abbey in the 1300s. Now farmed by the RSPB for the benefit of wildlife, a human population of just six lives alongside animals and birds, forming a wild ecosystem that is unique in Britain.

Here, having visited the island over the course of a year, artist Jane Smith portrays the interactions of its wildlife,
farm animals and human inhabitants.

Wild Island offers a humorous, first hand and personal view of island life, both human and otherwise, while providing an insight into the trials of a wildlife artist, who sometimes sits in a bog all day and at other times ends up covered in acrylic paint.

Vibrant illustrations accompany observations and explanations of Oronsay’s rhythms and habits, which form the backdrop to a series of wild encounters and individual characters in Smith’s charming story.

Wild Island: A Year in the Hebrides, by Jane Smith, published by Birlinn, £20.

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