With the first four days providing so many great birds and great birding locations, things kind of went off the boil. The Uist islands though good for birds, maybe doesn't have the strength of habitats for a week's birding.
The day started off more sunny than yesterday, with less cloud about, it was almost summery. We headed north, through the old main road, known as Peatland Road. We weren't too lucky with birds, but did bag a GREENSHANK on one of the lochans. This bird could have been possibly either a migrant or breeding bird, the latter very rare in the UK.
We arrived at a set of lochs and spied a pair of RED THROATED DIVERS. These birds nest in the many mini lochans that carpet the highlands of Scotland, flying out to sea or larger lochs to feed on fish. A flyover DIVER provivd some consternation amongst the pair, and they emitted a ghostly wail over the moorlands, a really haunting sound, one that really blends into and makes the landscape.
GOLDEN EAGLE country - seen drifting on thermals along the ridges. Today we saw four GOLDEN EAGLES, five SEA EAGLES, four SHORT EARED OWLS and four HEN HARRIERS.
With its favourite host species - the MEADOW PIPIT - so abundant in the area there were loads of CUCKOOS about. This male, on the left, was being seen off by a PIPIT
We carried on to Port Nan Long, where we had a stop, and you can see from the photos it was very picturesque. Luckily - in nature watching it all depends on luck - we had excellent views of a dog OTTER. It was initially seen slinking through the shoreline boulders. It swam out to see and could be seen underwater in the unpolluted clear blue water. We watched it for a while before it swam out of view round the bend of the coast.
We crossed the causeway to Berensey, a small island to the north of the Uists, small and pretty.
We had lunch overlooking the bay where a few HARBOUR SEALS were lounging around on rocks, catching up on some sleep. The HARBOUR SEALS have more dog like faces than the GREY SEALS, which we saw somewhere else.
Borve, main town of Brensey
Berensey was a small island, with one road, linking Eaast Beach and West Beach. Both were stunning locations with white sand that ran for miles, turquoise water and nobody around. A few LITTLE TERNS were seen at both beaches,
Typical machair landscape.
West Beach, Berensey
After this we took a slow journey back to Benbecula, and didn't see too much on the way.
So maybe the quietest of the days on the holiday, but one that was still very good, with some good wildlife and some beautiful locations. With some of these beaches it might be worthwhile to turn up in August, sit on the beach all day and maybe brave a paddle in the sea.
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