It was around 2pm on Friday that we got the text. A group of Manx Shearwater fledglings, who’d spent the last few weeks preparing for their first transatlantic flight, had become stuck underneath a pier at Rum’s ferry port.

They’d been drawn there by the safety lights that line the jetty, mistaking the beams for the stars and the moon that would ordinarily guide their first journey out to sea. Instead, they’d found themselves trapped in the maze of bars under the pier, their bodies ill-suited for take-off from hard surfaces.

We arrived just before the afternoon ferry, a particularly busy one considering the passenger charter had been cancelled due to bad weather. The pier was awash with tourists and visitors and locals alike, and the ferry was at least 20 minutes late. We could see it far out to sea, seemingly zig-zagging between the waves and almost certainly causing a few green faces on board. I got to work emptying our bins from work, while Coinneach took our screwdriver down to the pier that housed the stricken birds to help the several NatureScot employees and volunteers who were already there. By the time the ferry docked and people began to board, they had rescued 10 birds -........

© Herald Scotland