![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philmophlegmThursday
Still darkish when I got up, although it wasn't painfully early by any means. The man in the hotel tipped me off that there were definitely a pair of white-tailed eagles in the north-east of the island. Weather and visibility were both excellent, so that's where I went.
Most of North Uist appears to be water, either lochs, inlets or marshy ground. I stopped at the end of a tiny road that went to the island's most northeasterly point and stopped for a look around. Didn't see any eagles, but I did see a diver of some sort (maybe red-throated or black-throated) and a family of three otters diving and surfacing repeatedly very close to where I was. Got some good video footage of them.
Then I drove around the north of the island to the RSPB reserve at Balranald. Pleasant walk to a deserted beach facing the Atlantic. Quite a few different bird species (although I'm not good enough to identify many different ones) and what I hope was a hen harrier. I got a couple of long range photos, but I'm not totally convinced it wasn't a buzzard. Also a huge mixed eyrar* or herd* of mute and whooper swans.
Then I drove south along the A865 across the causeway to Grimsay, then another causeway to Benbecula, another causeway to South Uist (passing a sign to 'Stoneybridge' **). Just before the final causeway to Eriskay, I stopped at a small harbour to take some photos and surprised a curlew. At Eriskay I had just enough time to look south across to Barra, before turning around and dashing north to Lochmaddy again. In the end, I overestimated how long it would take me to return to Lochmaddy, and got there 30 minutes before I needed to to catch the 16.00 ferry back to Uig on Skye. That gave me time to wander around the coast a bit, spot a single, shy seal across the bay and take some nice photos of the ferry as it arrived.
The ferry took 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to Uig, so it was getting dark by the time I got off. I hadn't booked any accommodation, but had previously noticed that Skye was full of B&Bs, guest houses and hotels. I took the A87 south to Borve, then the A850 to Dunvegan and then the A863 to Struan and then Sligachan. I stopped at the Sligachan Hotel. When I mentioned this to my parents when I spoke to them that evening, they pointed out that directly opposite the hotel is an old bridge featured in a print they have hanging in their living room. Which is quite a coincidence really. I hadn't noticed it in the dark.
* Apparently the two collective nouns for swans.
** The existence of a village called 'Stoneybridge' will be amusing only to those people who remember the Scottish sketch show 'Absolutely'. I've been watching the DVD boxed set intermittently on this trip. Absolutely was a Channel 4 programme in the late 80s / early 90s. Most of the team vanished into obscurity, but you still see Morwenna Banks occasionally (in Steve Coogan's excellent 'Saxondale' for example) and Gordon Kennedy went on to play Little John in the BBC's Robin Hood series. 'Stoneybridge Town Council' was a long-running series of sketches.
Still darkish when I got up, although it wasn't painfully early by any means. The man in the hotel tipped me off that there were definitely a pair of white-tailed eagles in the north-east of the island. Weather and visibility were both excellent, so that's where I went.
Most of North Uist appears to be water, either lochs, inlets or marshy ground. I stopped at the end of a tiny road that went to the island's most northeasterly point and stopped for a look around. Didn't see any eagles, but I did see a diver of some sort (maybe red-throated or black-throated) and a family of three otters diving and surfacing repeatedly very close to where I was. Got some good video footage of them.
Then I drove around the north of the island to the RSPB reserve at Balranald. Pleasant walk to a deserted beach facing the Atlantic. Quite a few different bird species (although I'm not good enough to identify many different ones) and what I hope was a hen harrier. I got a couple of long range photos, but I'm not totally convinced it wasn't a buzzard. Also a huge mixed eyrar* or herd* of mute and whooper swans.
Then I drove south along the A865 across the causeway to Grimsay, then another causeway to Benbecula, another causeway to South Uist (passing a sign to 'Stoneybridge' **). Just before the final causeway to Eriskay, I stopped at a small harbour to take some photos and surprised a curlew. At Eriskay I had just enough time to look south across to Barra, before turning around and dashing north to Lochmaddy again. In the end, I overestimated how long it would take me to return to Lochmaddy, and got there 30 minutes before I needed to to catch the 16.00 ferry back to Uig on Skye. That gave me time to wander around the coast a bit, spot a single, shy seal across the bay and take some nice photos of the ferry as it arrived.
The ferry took 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to Uig, so it was getting dark by the time I got off. I hadn't booked any accommodation, but had previously noticed that Skye was full of B&Bs, guest houses and hotels. I took the A87 south to Borve, then the A850 to Dunvegan and then the A863 to Struan and then Sligachan. I stopped at the Sligachan Hotel. When I mentioned this to my parents when I spoke to them that evening, they pointed out that directly opposite the hotel is an old bridge featured in a print they have hanging in their living room. Which is quite a coincidence really. I hadn't noticed it in the dark.
* Apparently the two collective nouns for swans.
** The existence of a village called 'Stoneybridge' will be amusing only to those people who remember the Scottish sketch show 'Absolutely'. I've been watching the DVD boxed set intermittently on this trip. Absolutely was a Channel 4 programme in the late 80s / early 90s. Most of the team vanished into obscurity, but you still see Morwenna Banks occasionally (in Steve Coogan's excellent 'Saxondale' for example) and Gordon Kennedy went on to play Little John in the BBC's Robin Hood series. 'Stoneybridge Town Council' was a long-running series of sketches.
