Northwards

Friday, May 14

Pam started the day with a male Hen Harrier from the kitchen window, what a way to begin. It was sunny again, the last time we visited Berneray it was pouring down, seeing it in good light was to-day's plan. 

Via Bayhead Co-op to collect both yesterday and to-day's papers, we drove Committee Road to Sollas. Heather, our owner, said that it's so called because a committee of men got together to build it. Heather moved to the island when she was ten years old, her mother was an Islander. We saw very few birds, but the one we did see was an Arctic Skua, always a pleasure.

With a short stop to view the seals on Berneray,

 

we drove to Brusda cliff top. This bay is where the old Youth Hostel is situated, a whale's vertebrae lined up across the front.

It also gives extensive views across the Sound of Harris to the island itself.

 

The only other road on Berneray leads to Brusdha. Once one has climbed to the top of this low island, the remaining track takes one through extensive machair, rotational patches ploughed for this year's harvest, the remaining strips, low grass, awaiting its June crop of colourful Yellow Rattle, Birds Foot Trefoil, Red Bartsia, Common Centaury, Bog Piimpernel and Marsh Violet, to name a few. We usually see the Violets and the Trefoil before we leave.

It also contains many birds. One patch had over a hundred Twite, diminutive northern finches with pink rumps and straw coloured beaks. Never still, feeding busily on who knows what.

 

Oystercatchers are so ubiquitous that it's easy to pass by their striking physical colouration. 

 

I do wish that their beaks and legs were a better colour match.

An exchange of texts - when reception allowed - sent us off to meet Sue and Ian so that an extension lead could be exchanged. They went off to see the Twite, we left for Clachan cemetery and bay. Still not good for photos, a parked car in the way, we drove home via Committee Road. We stopped at the Raptor Watchpoint so that we could give the Emperor Moth lure a go. Within a few minutes, four male Emperor Moths were fluttering madly around the lure, which was in the net bag.  None of my photos were any good, including the one I'm about to add which at least shows part of one. The others were a blur - like the moths' wings.

 

Home for a cuppa and an early meal before leaving for ...........Committee Road. We had good views of a male Hen Harrier in the increasing gloom, none of my photos do it justice.Here's a couple anyway.

Two days of sun has brought some of the Bog Bean into flower.