Episode 4
Monty takes a trip down to the island of Barra, where he helps to establish a new walking trail and organise a training course for volunteer whale-watchers.
Marine biologist and professional diver Monty Halls is back in the Highlands and islands of Scotland, living the good life and working as a volunteer wildlife ranger in the Outer Hebrides.
With the proceeds from the Great Feast banked away, Monty can get going on some hard graft with a trip down to the island of Barra. After an encounter with the resident pod of bottlenose dolphins, he helps the ex-ranger Jonathan Grant establish a new walking trail.
Back at home, Monty helps to organise a training course for volunteer whale-watchers and starts to research and design a series of interpretation boards about the rocky shoreline.
His education programme continues with a talk to local schoolchildren, before they turn the tables on him, and he's invited to take a hands-on part in a crofting lesson, checking rams' testicles to make sure they are ready for breeding! He also learns that crops on the island are being badly hit by an explosion in the greylag goose population. So he joins David MacKay, of Scottish Natural Heritage, and gamekeeper Colin Newton, on a goose shoot aimed at keeping the birds away from the crops.
Finally, it's back out to sea. The Monach Isles are a thirteen-mile trip from Monty's cottage, and in autumn they are home to 20,000 grey seals, who spend their time pupping, fighting and mating in one of the great wildlife spectacles of Europe. Monty is also drafted in to help crofter Donald MacDonald round up the lambs that graze on the islands, and transport them to the mainland for sale.
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Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:06Mumford & Sons
Roll Away Your Stone
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00:26Camera Obscura
Forests & Sands
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Monty Halls |
| Producer | Ewen Thomson |
| Producer | Martin Pailthorpe |
