West Word - March 2025

Calving has now begun in earnest. The farm team has been hard at work ensuring all the new calves arrive safely and dealing with feisty cow mums. We are delighted to have the first red Beltie girl born in Canna - up to now, we’d only had red Beltie boys! 

The run up to lambing is well under way. The big barn and stable are both set out in preparation for what is the busiest time of the year for the farm. Sheep are being gathered, moved about the fields and organised. 

If you fancy learning more about lambing, why not come to Canna for the Lambing Weekend? The dates are: Friday 18th April to Sunday 20th April. You will be able to see the lambing stable, talk to the farm team and maybe even feed a lamb. 

Alongside the Lambing Weekend, the NTS are running their annual Easter Trail on the same weekend. This is taking place in Canna House Garden. Tickets can be booked via the Canna NTS Eventbrite page for both events.

Winnie had a very interesting beach find along at Tarbert - a drift card from the oil tanker Argo Merchant which sank off Nantucket Island in 1976. The drift cards were thrown into the oil spill as a way of monitoring how far the oil spill travelled. Each driftcard has a serial number and asks the finder to contact NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We have contacted NOAA and they have asked for more information so they can do a blog post about it. Winnie’s drift card has travelled across the Atlantic and landed on our shores some 49 years later. The plastic card is largely unscathed and still has some oil attached to it - a shocking example of how plastics don’t really degrade!

The community has done a couple of beach cleans over the past month. The winter storms always bring more marine litter so we’ve been gradually working our way around the bay clearing as best we can. All the marine litter goes into our dedicated marine litter skip down on the pier. If you are visiting Canna this season, the Ranger will be setting up marine litter stations at various points around the bay with bags, pickers and gloves so you can do your bit to help us keep on top of it. Any help is greatly appreciated. 

Aileen and Jane have worked hard over the winter to upgrade our Community Shop - it's been painted, new shelving has been installed, the new shop shed has been organised and we now have a dedicated area for island crafts. Thank you to Aileen and Jane for all your hard work. We look forward to welcoming our visitors to the new, improved community shop! 

We’d like to welcome Karen Clark, her husband William and their dog Nova to Canna. Karen is the new Canna House Manager and will be overseeing the smooth running of Canna House which opens to the public this season. Karen comes to us from NTS Perthshire with a wealth of experience in visitor services and management.