Day 7 - Last Day - 18/5/2018

So, the last proper day of the holiday, yeah a bit sad, but I'm glad I don't have to write any more posts. It was a day of travel, we said goodbye to the Uists around lunch time, drove through Skye and the western highlands.
Although we had seen a lot of birds here there was still one bogey bird of the trip. That was a RING NECKED DUCK, which had been recorded on a small loch in South Uist. On the three days before we would drive down to the loch to look for the bird and every time we failed. It wasn't a big loch so it was obvious the bird wasn't there...yet it kept getting reported. So on the fourth time of trying, and knowing we can never have another chance of viewing it, we drove down anticipating another blank. And what do you know? The bird was right bang in the middle of the loch with a femal TUFTIE. He seemed to be displaying to her, so it is quite possible the duck might try to settle down here. I mean its a long way back to America where he came from. Anyway a good sighting and I'm glad it didn't prove a downer for the trip.

A male RING NECKED DUCK with a female TUFTIE. The duck did resemble a TUFTIE, but was subtly different.

 

 

We headed up to the ferry on North Uist. We travelled through Committee Road, saw some SHORT EARED OWLS and two HEN HARRIERS, great reminders of how good the Islands are for birds. We took the ferry at Lochmaddy and crossed over to Skye.

 Lochmaddy

We saw the same birds going back as we did coming over, lots of AUKS on the water or flying thorugh, GANNETS, FULMERS, KITTIWAKES and TERNS. It was very windy, of course, and we were all tucked into the sheltered side.

 



BLACK GUILLEMOT seen from the boat.

 

We arrived at the port in Uig on Skye and continued our journey onwards. The journey took a long time and although there were more stops we didn't really see anything at them.

It was evening time when I was dropped off at the B&B, the same one as before, said my farewells and left the group. I spent the evening at the Boat of Garten, a nice quiet place, walked along the River Spey for a bit, had a drink at the hotel and went to bed quite early.

So we got the bird - the RING NECKED DUCK - but with most of the day spent travelling it was fairly quiet bird wise. It was a shame to end the holiday, I had a nice time, but now my thoughts were directed towards the journey back and the overly complicated train schedule I had chosen for myself to return home. One more post of the holiday and it will be over, I promise.