The promise at the end of the last diary was to show you a little of our South Uist holiday, so here goes. The wee cottage we stayed in was located at a place called Stoneybridge, a beautiful location close to the highest hills in the Uists (a whole 600m!) and very close to the flower rich machair. The name of the settlement in English doesn’t come near to the name in Gaelic, I hope this picture of the road sign explains what I mean.
The holiday started on a great note when we found a strange looking plant growing in a deep ditch draining a rich, grassy area where corncrakes were calling. The first plant was a burr-reed, but just behind it was a strange plant with white flowers, sticking out of the water. Normally I wouldn’t take a bit of plant away that looked vaguely like an umbellifer,
but I did, and thankfully, the odd leaf helped with the identification – whorled water dropwort! What? A plant that I had never heard of so I decided to check the plant list of South Uist that Andy,my work colleague, had suggested I look at. Andy always has an ulterior motive in suggesting these things knowing I am likely to go and look for some of the plants in the list that haven’t been seen for a while. And so it was with the w-w dropwort. It had only been seen at two location in the Uists, and we had found one of them, a new plant for me and a record for the BSBI recorder (Botanical Society of the British Isles http://www.bsbi.org.uk/ ) to say it was still there.The plant list was to provide me with one of the real highlights of the holiday – the rare orchid, Irish lady’s tresses (Spiranthes romanzoffiana). On the middle Saturday, Janet was keen to see
one of the “open gardens” on these wind swept islands. “Do you think you could drop me off on the way?” and I was off to 'feed' the horseflies and midges. The orchid had been recorded from close to a roadside loch in the late 1990s, and, being on my ‘keen to see’ list, I thought it was worth spending a few hours trying to re-locate it. This plant has a strange UK distribution (see map left) occurring in parts of Ireland and on some of the islands between there and the Uists. The island of Barra to the south of South Uist, has the most locations in the islands, but there are a scatter of old locations in South Uist. The plant is often found in areas of old lazy beds, sites were crofters of long ago used to cover lines of seaw
eed with shallow soil covering the bedrock in which to grow crops. This system of cultivation left distinct ridges and furrows on hillsides, many of which can still be seen today. How on earth they were given the name of lazy beds I don’t know because humping the seaweed and digging the soil was carried out by people who were anything but lazy (see picture right picture property of St Andrews University). I digress. The orchid has also been recorded from the shorelines of some lochs. At this location the orchid had been recorded from a typical lazy bed site and also from close to the loch. A search of the lazy beds didn’t 
produce anything so I made my way to the loch. The previously known site was on the opposite shore; I had a long walk to get there and decided to follow the shore. Just above the high water mark there were carpets of long-leaved sundews, interrupted in places with the pinky-white flowers of bog pimpernel. Whilst photographing the sundews (left) I could see a small white plant growing very close to the loch shore. Hmm. I walked over and found that there were four plants, all very small but looking distinctly orchid like. Damn it, I’d forgotten the flower book so I had to phone Janet and get her to read the description of the flower to me. This had to be Irish Lady’s tresses, I wouldn’t need to go to Colonsay after all, where a colleague had offered to show me the orchid! The plants were so small I had to be very careful whilst taking my photographs not to trample any I’d not noticed. With decent pictures I would be able to check properly with the flower
book once back at the cottage. The orchids were a long way from their best, the photo (right) was taken mid July, the plant isn’t fully grown until a month later. However, beggars can’t be choosers and here was a plant I had waited a long time to see. A nearby hen harrier with young and lots of royal fern along the loch shore and I had had a great day. I even managed to photograph a solitary bee building a nest in a rock crevasse for Murdo to check later. When Janet picked me up she had been so amazed by the garden she had just visited that we both made a return visit, it was good to see that with a bit of TLC, lots of manure and even more enthusiasm a brilliant show of flowers could be achieved, despite the wind. Their onions also put mine to shame, they had though, been growing since the previous November!On one day Janet unpacked her paints and brushes and plonked herself in the machair close to the cottage to do a full day's painting whilst I was left to roam. Some of the coastal graveyards were known to be good for orchids and as I could see one in the distance, I headed in that di
rection. Along the way I found my first colony of the solitary bee Colletes floralis, a rarity found breeding in the firmer bits of sand dunes. Last year we found about twelve colonies, adding greatly to the known population on the islands. The burial ground proved to be very poor for all plants, regular cutting of the grass ensured that anything growing more than a couple of inches high was decapitated, so my search for the pyramidal orchid failed miserably. Many lochs on the island have one or two pairs of breeding mute swans and the SNH reserve at Loch Drudibeg is famous for it population of wintering swans. Even in July there were probably fifty to a hundred swans to be seen on the loch along with family parties of greylag geese. On my way back to Ja
net a family of swans caught my eye and I slowly crept up on them to see if I could get a photograph without disturbing them. The family behaved wonderfully and this nice picture was obtained. When I got back to Janet her painting session was drawing to a close and a couple of pictures had almost been completed. Where she had been sitting she had found a nice wee colony of lesser butterfly orchids. As this is a species SNH was asking for records of, we searched a little wider around. The further we walked the more orchids we found and by the time we had worked our 
way back to our starting point over one hundred had been counted. We then noticed there were some on the other side of the road and at least another fifty were counted. A bit of flotsam from the nearby shore provided Janet with a bit of late afternoon exercise! We also passed what must be one of the best washing lines in Britain with one of the best views. Put the washing out and with the helpful 'breeze' it could probably be brought back in within half an hour! Be warned though, the Islanders have special 'western isles' pegs to ensure the washing doesn't end up in Greenland!The following day we parked the car up close to the dunes to the west of Lochboisedale and headed for the beach. A firmer bit of dune caught my eye as possibly a suitable site for the solitary bee and, despite the dune housing a crofters bonfire site, I could see quite a few holes. Despite the fact that the bees nest in loose colonies, each bee digs its own hole in which to breed. As the clouds parted and the sun started to shine the bees became more active many coming
back to their holes covered in yellow pollen. A little further off I could see another suitable-looking hillock and when I reached it I realised that I had found something special. The whole hillock was covered with holes each with its telltale heap of dug out sand at the entrance. Impossible to count but an estimate suggested there were at least a thousand holes, and possibly the biggest colony yet found. As the sun shone the bees became more active and it was a bit like standing next to a traditional beehive. A few metres away was the pebbly edge to the beach and this was covered with clumps of flowering ragwort and a tall, very large headed yellow hawkweed, sw.JPG)
aying around in the strong breeze. Bingo, this was where the bees were foraging, and for the first time I was able to see not just the odd one, but dozens of bees visiting flowers. The camera was quickly assembled and with Janet’s help I tried to photograph the feeding bees. The technique adopted was for us both to walk slowly amongst the hawkweeds and when a bee was found with its bum sticking out from the petals, Janet would gently hold the stem of the flower to stop the plant swaying, and I would move in with the camera and try and get a photograph. Eventually we saw bees visiting a sheltered patch of ragwort and here it was possible to wait for one to land and start to feed before trying to photograph it on a plant that was hardly moving. Brilliant! By the end of the holiday about fifty colonies of bees had been recorded - I'll be getting blamed for them becoming less rare!
Our holiday cottage was far enough south to allow us to visit Eriskay quite easily and on one day we took the early morning ferry from Eriskay to Barra, an island we had never visited before. On the road to Eriskay we found one of the neatest peat workings we have ever seen. The crofters pride themselves in building neat peat stacks when the peats have been brought
‘home’, but at this site the crofter had made an amazing job of stacking the freshly cut peats neatly, something I never managed when I cut peat at Tulloch Moor. On the causeway linking Eriskay we found a few seals hauled out on rocks, waiting for the incoming tide to wash them off. This one didn’t seem too worried by our presence.This amazing statue can be seen by the A865 road close to West Gerinish.
It’s shown on the OS map and overlooks an amazing area of houses, lochs and sea. It is known as Our Lady of the Isles and for more information about the statue see http://www.rcdai.org.uk/articles/27/1/Our-Lady-of-the-Isles/Page1.htmlThe evening sunsets alone are worth going to
the Uists to see, this one occurred at the end of the day after heavy rain.Yesterday was a very sad day for the staff at Abernethy, particularly those involved with the breeding ospreys throughout the summer. You get to September, 
the birds have all migrated south and the Osprey Centre is closed up after another summer breeding season. Job done – you think. As you saw in the last diary, this summer we fitted the two osprey chicks with satellite tracking devices, so, for the first time the season didn’t end with the closing of the Centre, and the movement of the two chicks (Deshar & Nethy) was watched and waited for on a daily basis. The first heart-stopping moment was when Deshar on one of his first major flights, took off out over the north-sea, only returning to terra-firma after a flight of twelve hours. Nethy on the other hand sauntered gently south over land. For four weeks both birds stayed in the south of England, no doubt well stocked lakes 
allowing them to learn to fish and look after themselves properly as well as putting on weight in readiness for the longest flight of their young lives south, to northwest Africa. Last Friday they were on the move again, Nethy hopping across the Channel into France but Deshar turned right (blue line) and remained over the Channel, missing France and Portugal and flying on over the sea. When he also missed the Azores we knew he was in real trouble, five days on the wing, 2000 miles flown and then another fatal turn to the west. The download from the tracker at 6pm on Tuesday showed zero altitude and zero movement, he had to be in the sea. If by chance he had found a ship, there should at least have been lateral movement recorded. It’s not very often a line on a map can leave you feeling so helpless and full of pending disaster. Perhaps this happens more than we realise, modern technology taking us into a world we’ve never been in before. Nethy moved from France and into Spain during the same day.
The next diary will let you know how the month-long tooth fungi survey got on and what has this plant got to 
do with this man climbing to unheard of heights, well for him it was!
the birds have all migrated south and the Osprey Centre is closed up after another summer breeding season. Job done – you think. As you saw in the last diary, this summer we fitted the two osprey chicks with satellite tracking devices, so, for the first time the season didn’t end with the closing of the Centre, and the movement of the two chicks (Deshar & Nethy) was watched and waited for on a daily basis. The first heart-stopping moment was when Deshar on one of his first major flights, took off out over the north-sea, only returning to terra-firma after a flight of twelve hours. Nethy on the other hand sauntered gently south over land. For four weeks both birds stayed in the south of England, no doubt well stocked lakes 
allowing them to learn to fish and look after themselves properly as well as putting on weight in readiness for the longest flight of their young lives south, to northwest Africa. Last Friday they were on the move again, Nethy hopping across the Channel into France but Deshar turned right (blue line) and remained over the Channel, missing France and Portugal and flying on over the sea. When he also missed the Azores we knew he was in real trouble, five days on the wing, 2000 miles flown and then another fatal turn to the west. The download from the tracker at 6pm on Tuesday showed zero altitude and zero movement, he had to be in the sea. If by chance he had found a ship, there should at least have been lateral movement recorded. It’s not very often a line on a map can leave you feeling so helpless and full of pending disaster. Perhaps this happens more than we realise, modern technology taking us into a world we’ve never been in before. Nethy moved from France and into Spain during the same day.
The next diary will let you know how the month-long tooth fungi survey got on and what has this plant got to 
do with this man climbing to unheard of heights, well for him it was! That’s it, enjoy the read.
Best wishes
Stewart & Janet
Best wishes
Stewart & Janet
This man with a funny beard appear in the local paper last week!
All photos © Stewart Taylor
