Day by day in the Uists

Sunday 2 August
Depart Firwood 07h20 'cos Janet doesn’t want to be late for the ferry on Skye. Yep, arrive Uig at 11h00, 3 hours before the ferry departs! We enjoy a walk back through the village and take a bit of a willow-herb back to the car for identification. Great willow-herb. Sandwich and coffee on picnic bench where a Frenchman with brilliant English asks where he can buy some of the locally brewed beer. Being Sunday no alcohol available before 12 noon despite there being a Skye Brewery shop by the pier. Ferry on time, amazing U-turn right by pier – I’ve seen it several times and it still amazes me – and being early we are first in queue and get on ferry first meaning first off at the other end. Doesn’t matter really as we are staying in Lochmaddy, the ferry port for North Uist. Crossing smooth, lots of shearwaters, puffins and arctic terns diving for sandeels way out to sea. Perhaps a shortage nearer to shore, no doubt hoovered up by fishing boats large and small. For the first time ever I haven’t brought my fishing gear, you just don’t catch fish from the shore any more or if you do they are very small and should be thrown back. 5pm, we are installed in the cottage full of the most amazing nick-nacks and a toaster that defies all logic! Dine, and a short walk round the village to blow away the cobwebs in a wind that is getting up to gale force. Pair of mute swans on loch opposite cottage with 6 youngsters.

Monday 3 August
Co-op shop in Solas and back for lunch at lunch at cottage. Very windy and a bit of horizontal rain. Walk to café/craft shop down road and then round a 3 mile circuit taking in a camera obscura art structure and passing a huge house, under restoration, built originally from the profits from seaweed collection. The next house has a couple of horses sheltering behind it to escape the wind, and a friendly dog comes to greet us. Meadow brown and green-veined white butterflies wizz by on the wind, and the local ginger bumblebee is foraging on the abundant clumps of knapweed flowers, the equivalent of Wordsworth’s “host of golden daffodils” a truly amazing sight, and something we haven’t seen before during our usual July visits. On the track back to the road passed by the local chimney sweep with daughter trying hard to keep water and goldfish in tank sitting on her knee! We reach the Berneray road and head back to Lochmaddy and find a nice patch of field gentians (right) growing by the drive to a house by the road. Pass signs saying the Ben Lee run and walk will be taking place on Friday, followed by a dance!

Tuesday 4 August
Janet needs a selection of Harris tweed for a new card venture (see picture) so first thing we walk down to the CalMac ferry office to book tickets for the ferry between Berneray and Leverburgh in Harris, or An t-Ob as it named on the OS maps. Lord Leverhume named the place after himself following investments he made here in the early 1900’s. See http://www.culturehebrides.com/heritage/lever/ for how the Islanders interpreted his well-meant Hebridean intentions & http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Rivington/leverhulme.html for more information. On the way back to the cottage we encountered a flock of 20 crossbills feeding on rowan berries, no doubt remnants of the big invasion that took place on the islands about mid-July. Big-billed or commons – hard to tell. And then it was off for a walk on Hosta beach, packed as is normal on these enormous beaches, with deckchairs, donkey rides and 100’s of visitors!!! Sorry, I’m being a bit silly, but unusually, we did meet two people! Strangely, no Colletes bees, but clumps of pink water speedwell & fool’s watercress had us consulting the flower books. In the evening, the skies cleared and I headed off to the road to Lochportain to look for a very local wee plant. Progress was however, very slow, stopping all along the way to take photos in the developing evening sunshine. By the time I got to the general area for the plant it was almost dark and I couldn’t find anything at the original passing-place site. Undeterred, I searched more of the roadside verge and having got used to similar looking bits of sundews and bedstraws I eventually found something very small, with opposite wee leaves and tiny white flowers and in the gathering gloom I had to use flash to record the plant, site and GPS reading to show that Allseed Radiola linoides, still persists close to its original site where it was last recorded in 1995.

Wednesday 5 August
Happy birthday brother John and wife Jill. 10h30 ferry to Harris, a bit “bouncy” in the strong winds. First visit is to weaver Donald John Mackay in Losgaintir, opposite the island of Taransay of Ben Foggel fame. A few metres of various patterns bought, photo of Donald John at his loom, and it was off to Tarbet to visit a few more tweed shops and John, ex colleague of Janet at Grantown Grammar School, who now runs one of the local shops. Then it was off down the “Golden Road” to visit Rodel Church before catching the 6.30pm ferry back to Berneray. Best sight of day was about 20 black guillemots roosting on one of the many marker buoys on route back to Berneray. Sadly, too windy and wet to have the camera and big lens out.

Thursday 6 August
A leki pole day for Stewart and an “Art on the Map” day for Janet. On the way to my drop off point Janet spotted an otter under one of the bridges on the edge of Loch Euphort. Once dropped off it was just a case of following the shore of Loch Obasaraigh for about 4km to get to the base of Eaval, one of the most prominent hills on North Uist. It looks big but is only 350m in height. Highlights of the day really, were dwarf willow on the summit and hundreds of lochs visible all around, white beaked sedge growing in a bog with lots of long-leaved sundew, common aeshna and highland darter dragonflies, the males of the latter being a wonderful red colour. I just about made the 5pm rendezvous.

Friday 7 August
A drive down to the RSPB reserve at Balranald and lunch at nearby Loch na Reivil. First great yellow bumblebee of the trip feeding on knapweed, and lots of painted lady butterflies from the big invasion late June. Janet did a few sketches while I photographed the brilliantly yellow, corn marigolds growing in the cereal crop. The massed ranks of blue knapweeds and corn marigolds in the cultivated field shows just what we have lost in many of our farmed areas on the mainland. Lunch over we headed off for Beinn a’ Bhaile, similar habitats but fewer visitors than at Balranald. The first Colletes floralis bees were seen here, or so we thought, but it was only when we got home and sent in bee records that Murdo said “Ahh, but which Colletes?” In August a second Colletes bee emerges C. succinctus, burrowing in the same sites as C. floralis, but feeding on the nearby areas of flowering heather. I should have collected a specimen from each site for a positive ID, so the 10 recorded sites for the trip can only go down as Colletes spp! You live and learn. Corn buntings and masses of painted ladyies in the dunes were worth the visit and the wee ladybird that Janet had but then lost only to emerge from her clothing when we got back to the cottage, turned out to be the 11-spot ladybird, a dune dweller. After dinner, we watched the Ben Lee hill runners (and walkers) head back into Lochmaddy in perfect weather conditions to get ready for their evening dance.

Saturday 8 August
The day we move from North to South Uist to the cottage we rented in 2008. A visit to the Irish lady’s tresses site on the way found just one flowering spike this year, already a little past its best, so the “ultimate” photo still eludes me. An “Art on the Map” stop at Nunton for coffee and a scone and lunch a little further down the coast where a wee jetty and boat create the perfect foreground for a view across the bay to the hills of Hecla and Beinn Mhor in the distance. A strange buttercup like plant growing on the shingle in the bay turned out to be celery-leaved buttercup. A quick shop at the Co-op in Creagorry was followed by fine views of a short-eared owl hunting for food as we crossed the last causeway. At the cottage at Stoneybridge we were greeted by another short-eared owl, Kate, the owner, and a bright green emperor moth caterpillar on the house wall. The peat fire was already set and within half an hour it felt like we hadn’t been away from the place. Heavy showers made it an evening for sorting the photos.

Sunday 9 August
Looks like a changeable day so we decide to stay local to cottage and enjoy a walk along the beach and through the dunes. Lots of small birds along parts of the beach with dunlin, knot, sanderling and turnstone, the last three still sporting their breeding plumage showing them to be recent arrivals from breeding grounds further north. A few more Colletes spp seen, several excavating their breeding burrows. Half an hour spent photographing this activity show this individual to be very “tatty” with ragged edges to the wings. My guess would be C. floralis for this individual though the photo of another bee elsewhere shows it to be in fairly pristine condition so possibly C. succinctus. A spider caught exiting one of the bee holes turns out to be a sand wolf spider, I’ve yet to find out if it preys on the bees. Following the track through the dunes we find a patch of rest harrow, a rare plant in this area and feeding on the flowers a great yellow bumblebee – a couple of rarities together. Photo shows bee on knapweed.

10 August
A day where Janet drops me off in the area where we found the Irish lady’s tresses last year so that I can spend the day checking out a couple of locations where the orchid had been recorded many years ago. With occasional sun, the dragonflies are on the wing with both common and Highland darters recorded, along with common blue and meadow brown butterflies. Wandering across an area of bog towards the first loch there is lots of long-leaved sundew and a small yellow flower in areas of old peat-workings turns out to be lesser bladderwort (Utricularia minor). The first loch comes in to view but a check of my GPS says I’m 500m out! I assume I’ve got the wrong setting and push on. A couple of hours searching produces two locations for the orchid, with a single plant at each site. I stop for a bite to eat and it dawns on me – I’m on the wrong loch! The error though turns out to be a real bonus, the orchid has never been recorded here before – we have a new site. I push on to the correct loch seeing black bog rush for the first time and an egg laying common aeshna. I don’t find any orchids at the loch, but I am now in a bit of a hurry to meet Janet a few miles away, and don’t devote as much time as I would normally do. I will have to return. To get to the rendezvous point I have to skirt round the end of the loch where we saw a single flower on Saturday and there in front of me are four orchids peeping out of the vegetation on the loch shore fully half a mile from our known site. A check later in the day shows that the orchid has been recorded in roughly this spot before, but not for many years. Working my leki poles like a cross-country skier I get to the meeting point with Janet - almost on time.

11 August
We spend the day around Kildonan, wandering along the shore and amongst the flowery fields and dunes. We are still blown away by the profusion of knapweed and scabious flowers and the great yellow bumblebee turns up again. Worryingly we actually meet somebody on this three kilometre long beach!

12 August
Heavy rain, and we planned to spend the day walking on Eriskay. We set off, fingers crossed. As we drive across the causeway to the island we can see a few bits of blue sky and by the time we park the car up by one of the minor roads for lunch the sun is out and all is well with the world. More painted lady butterflies, a few field gentians and yet more massed ranks of knapweed flowers. “What’s that big umbellifer – it looks a bit like celery” says Janet. I grab a bit to take back for identification. Hart’s tongue fern growing on the wall of a dilapidated building by a wee jetty is new for the area, and Janet spots a peacock butterfly by the road as we walk to the ferry pier, a scarce butterfly in these parts. We watch the ferry for Barra come and go and walk back to the car along the beach. We debate the identity of the second bird of prey over the hill behind the houses, buzzard in front but the golden head of the one behind confirms golden eagle, just where the tourist information guide says you are likely to see them! Fish and chips on the way home and it is then that I start to feel a bit odd. And the mystery umbellifer? Hemlock water dropwort – deadly poisonous, and possibly the reason for feeling a bit odd later in the day.

13 August
Our last day and we head for the Linique/Iochdar area where Hebridean Jewellery (http://www.hebrideanjewellery.co.uk/ ) have their shop and tearoom. We are not tempted, and spend the day wandering the roads and shore instead, there will be plenty of shops to visit once we get home. A strange edible plant called glasswort (Salicornia europaea agg) can be found here growing on the edge of the saltmarsh. Across the massive sandy bay the hill linked to last weeks exploits – Eaval – stands proudly pyramidal against a blue sky and white cumulus clouds. The walk round the bay takes us past a wonderfully restored thatched croft house – sadly a part-time lived in holiday home. The loch by the shop has a pair of mute swans and another brood of 6, not unusual on the islands this year, and dunlins forage on the wetter parts of the sandy bay. Round the rocky Rubha Thornais headland and we spot a patch of small nettle, something we’ve not seen before and again a new plant for this area. And then it was down the road to start to pack for tomorrows departure. Kate comes round for an hour to see what we have been up to and to let us know how the local craft initiative is going, and, she says, sit by her cottage's

peat fire!

The drive back was very wet and, despite the weather being very mixed, we left the islands with lots of happy memories.

Happy reading
Stewart & Janet

All photos © Stewart Taylor