ISLANDS OF HOPE
One afternoon, while overlooking the majestic Sound of Jura from his home on the Argyll coast, marine volunteer John Aitchison took out a telescope to watch for harbour porpoises. Over an hour-and-a-half, the award-winning wildlife filmmaker and chairman of the Friends of the Sound of Jura counted not five, not 15, but 50 of these charming, short-nosed cetaceans, clustered in small groups. ‘It’s one of the best places in Europe to see harbour porpoises, shy animals that keep themselves to themselves,’ says John, adding, ‘we also have common and bottlenose dolphins in the Sound and humpback whales in the Sound of Mull nearby.’
Jura, a rugged, glacier-formed scrap of an island – home to just 200 people, 6,000 red deer and a tribe of otters and seals – is part of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Along with
