The beginning for me was summer 1970. I sat in a tent with two other students on Pabbay, a small uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. Andrew Ramsey, Norman Macdonald and I were working for Operation Seafarer, the first complete census of seabirds of Britain and Ireland. As part of this effort, I had trudged after Andrew to other islands in the Sound of Harris, to Auskerry in the Orkneys and for several visits to Canna, a wonderful Hebridean island to the west of Rùm and to the south of Skye. For close to 1,000 years, Pabbay was home to a small settlement. Now all that remains are the foundations of the village, some lazy beds (those patches in which vegetables were cultivated by sowing them on terraces created from rotting kelp and peat) and the roofless walls of a small church. The former islanders rest under its protection, lying beneath little mossy hummocks and peacefully metamorphosing into luxuriant pink splashes of sea thrift. There were fulmars sitting atop these natural gardens, brooding on their nests with an air of great and inner sanctity unless you approached them too closely. Then, you were welcomed with a warm vomit of fishy oil.

We were marooned. There were no birds uncounted and it was hard to find one that was not shyly sporting a shiny new ring on a leg. Our work was over, a north Atlantic gale was blowing, and our boatman in North Uist was wisely prudent. Pabbay, situated in the Sound of Harris, is completely exposed to the Atlantic. Our boatman had decided to stay at home.