Day 1 - Boat of Garten to Benbecula - 12/5/2018

The first proper day of the holiday saw me getting picked up from the B&B at eight o'clock. A mini bus full of eight people awaited me. We sped along to Inverness, then down Loch Ness, the most famous loch in the world, through the highlands to Skye. As we entered the Western part of Scotland, the species of crow changed from CARRION to HOODED, the same size bird just with a grey body. They were also a lot rarer than our carrion ones.
The landscape was stunning, but after centuries of heavy grazing were completely lifeless as nothing can grow there, there was nothing for any creature to eat. As stewards of the natural world mankind has done a terrible job.

We went over the Skye bridge and took our first stop on the island. COMMON SANDPIPERS were on the rocky shoreline, a bird we would see most days, usually always on rocks, distinctively flicking their tales.
We continued along to an area of clear fell on a hill which was naturally regenerating with native tree species. From there we had distant views of two GOLDEN EAGLES, a WHITE TAILED EAGLE, and some RAVENS. We would see EAGLES most days, mostly always like this, distant specs on a far ridge riding the thermals but never really coming in close. It was a shame but there was nothing we could really do about it, and it was still an impressive sight.
We carried on through Skye to the ferry terminal for the Uist Islands at Uig. Out in the harbour there were several pairs of EIDER, and also the first BLACK GUILLEMOTS of the trip.

Adult summer plumaged GREAT NORTHERN DIVER

 



We caught sight of a GREAT NORTHERN DIVER, and this was my first ever sighting of one in summer plumage. I thought this was a great sight, as it was an absolutely stunning bird, but I didn't realise they would actually be relatively common, that I would see several every day in various stages of age and plumage. That was one of the highlights of the holiday.
The ferry crossing ended up taking around two hours, embarking and disembarking, and was relatively calm, although there was still a strong wind. The usual Scottish seabirds were present in small numbers on the sea, usually in ones or twos. This included the auks: PUFFINS, RAZORBILLS and GUILLEMOTS, birds often loafing on the water before being spooked into flight by the ferry. Also flying through were GANNETS, KITTIWAKES, ARCTIC TERNS, with SHAGS nearer to land.

From the ferry terminal we travelled down to the hotel at Benbecula, called the Black Isle Hotel. Although we didn't stop on the way, we could see the Island landscape was one of low moorland and rough grassland drained by many, many lochs. On some were RED BREASTED MERGANSER, a new bird for the year for me, and quite commonly found throughout the island.
The hotel was very nice and comfortable. Just down from there was a path to the beach, a beautiful strip of white sand and turquoise water, which if it wasn't so cold could have been from the Caribbean. Most evenings after the days' excursions but before dinner I would go down there and mentally unwind. I was usually the only person there.