STILL not Birdwatchers...

We made a repeat visit to RSPB Balranald on Sunday. We generally try to make the Sundays while we’re here fairly quiet days, without too much whizzing about – in part because it helps to keep at least some sort of grasp on where we are in the week, but also because the Islands generally keep Sundays as a quiet day, and we try to respect that.  We knew it was going to be a good day when one of the first birds we saw was a Corn Bunting – pretty rare across much of the country but still fairly common here thanks to the low intensity farming methods. He must have been happy anyway – he sat there quite cheerfully while I edged to within about 10 feet of him and then he helpfully sang for me…

Now if you aren’t  familiar with a Corn Bunting’s Choral efforts, just imagine someone jangling a bunch of keys about and you’re pretty much there – Aled Jones they are NOT! Once Mr Bunting had taken his bows and moved on, we wandered along the beach for a while. Word of the modelling session had obviously spread as this Dunlin was also happy to pose….

…No singing this time – he just stood there looking leggy and elegant.

Meanwhile, further along the beach, (just past the very chilly-looking twitchers standing waiting in hope that the Harlequin Duck was going to appear again) the award for “Mallards in the most implausible spot imagineable” was given out…

…not normally considered Sea-ducks, Mallards, but this pair looked fairly at home.  And elsewhere there were the usual big crowds of small waders – sociable little chaps like these Sanderling…

…they will look a lot more glamorous in a few weeks – they are currently mid-way through their change from their drab grey winter plumage into their beautiful Summer wardrobe – you can just see hints of their colour-palette of choice in the coppery, chestnut tones in the one on the right. One thing we’re noticing this year is that a lot of things are a way behind where they were at this time last year – that’s something you notice a lot as annual visitors – friends here joke that they know where they are in the seasons by when we arrive, but you do really notice each year how far on – or not – the usual springtime changes have come along. This year there are noticeably less varieties of flower, there is no chance that the Iris will be flowering before we leave, and we’ll be lucky to see any waterlilies out either. It’s not just the birds that are a little late changing over their clothes for the new season!

Robyn

Run, Crawl & Walk...

Saturday was a bit of a “pottering about” day – we started off southwards – down through Benbecula, and were quickly reminded that it was the day of the Benbecula Half-Marathon – the reminder came quickly when we realised that we were sharing the single-track road with the runners. No barriers, barricades, or flag waving crowds here! As a good pal of mine recently ran a marathon (mad girl that she is!) I felt quite sorry for the runners battling along with no cheering or encouragement, so we stopped for a while at the war memorial where two others were showing their support and cheered and shouted “well dones” and “keep goings!” for a while. And I took some photos…

We drove on, before stopping again a little further South to watch this beautiful swan family for a while. They seem to be looking after their 8 cygnets extremely well – up here most young are lost to birds of prey or simply the conditions, but so far these proud parents seem to be keeping their brood safe.

On again – a quick stop to grab some bread and cheese for lunch, and then to one of our favourite spots in South Uist to eat – Loch Eynort.

This is an amazing place for a walk – there used to be one main path running along the line of the Loch down to a little creek, but the crofter/landowner has been working like mad over these last few years on putting in plenty more – so you can roam all over the place now! We stuck to the old path on the way out, crossing the creek at the little bridge and making our way from there on sheep/deer-tracks about as far as we could.

After a bit of a poke around looking at all the different plants, flowers and lichens about the place, we wandered back – taking a different path this time and disturbing a poor Heron who was nesting in the trees above us. I should think her first surprise came when she actually found a tree that she could nest in – Herons have to improvise a bit out here as there aren’t many trees – Loch Eynort however has a small plantation of pines, and also – and this is REALLY unusual – a little wooded area of deciduous trees – we spotted Ash, Sycamore and Rowan.  The wooded areas were absolutely full of Bluebells too – just look at this gorgeous little clump of them…

…and little clumps like that are irresistible when it comes to photographic japes like this….

…zoom-bursts are easy, and fun!

Robyn

Abandoned...

Another one for the “Abandoned” Series today – and a slightly different subject for this one, too! Those of you who watched the “Restoration Man” Series on the television might remember that one of the properties they showed was an old abandoned church on the Island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Well this is effectively it’s “twin” – just a few miles South on North Uist, at Trumisgarry.

(Excuse the jaunty angle in the shot above – the old Manse still stands next door, and is inhabited, and without going into their garden I couldn’t get further back than this to take the shot – even our widest lens was having none of this size of building!)

This building is a “Parliamentary Church” – Designed by Thomas Telford following an Act of Parliament in 1832 providing Grants for the building of churches and manses in communities without any church buildings. Of the 43 churches originally planned, 32 were built around the Scottish Highlands and Islands – including this one and the one up on Berneray (There were originally others in Harris & Lewis also – those have now been demolished, however.)  

They were designed as a deliberately simple, T-shaped  structure – solidly yet cost-effectively built, with – for the time – very simple windows and just two doors. Some of the windows in this building still have their glass, although the roof has completely gone (and the timbers from it been “recycled” presumably, as there is no sign of them inside!) and all that remains is the stone and metalwork.

In order to make best use of the Church it doubled for a while as a school – I should have imagined this would have been a mighty uncomfortable place to take your lessons – especially in the depths of winter!  It ceased to be used as a place of worship in 1941, and has been steadily falling into dereliction ever since.

Although simple it’s a remarkably beautiful structure – anyone who saw the programme showing what was done with the one on Berneray will know this already. Sadly I suspect this one is doomed to stay as it is – with the Manse next door already having people living in it it’s unlikely that anyone looking for permission to renovate this one would be allowed as the two properties are, as you would expect, right next to one another.

Robyn.

Welcome to the Spa...

Once again we’ve been lucky with the weather – and when the sun is shining, and the wind has dropped a bit up here, there’s few better places to be than the beach!  We headed off to Hosta on the west coast of North Uist – which may possibly be one of our favourite beaches on the island, we think. A beautiful curve of white sand and on the day we were there marvellous crashing waves….no whale music needed at THIS Spa – ocean-sounds are quite soothing enough!

As the tide goes out it leaves behind spools of water in the dips on the rocks – which get gently warmed by the sun. A perfect place to soak your feet…

…and then a wander around on sun-warmed rocks seeing what’s in the various pools – we found fish darting about in one, and the rocks themselves are all stripey – look, like giant humbugs!

A quick paddle in the sea revealed that the water there had NOT been so well-warmed by the sun – brrrr – time to head back and find a foot-spa I think…

A few hours spent somewhere like this is just so calming – and even better up here, so often you have the beach almost to yourself. Look at this…

…that, by Uist standards, is a busy beach. We counted ten other people on it at one stage – which is almost unheard of at this time of year, but with an expanse of sand this sweeping and vast, it’s really not an issue. Of course as most of the west coast of the islands is sandy like this, there’s plenty of room for those who want to go beachcombing or foot-spa’ing to just spread themselves out and not get in each others way, while still stopping for a cheery chat when passing!

Robyn

Still Standing after all these years...

Thursday was a quiet, pottering around sort of day. The weather was still lovely, although not quite so hot as the day before (which I’ll blog about separately) and there were lots of places we wanted to go, so we decided to just wander and see where we ended up. We were actually heading for lunch when we spotted a Little Tern fishing – they’re really delicate birds to watch, and so beautiful when they’re diving for fish – but really fast too, and tricky to even keep in the viewfinder, so I was quite pleased with this…

After lunch we decided to head further south to see what was about, and inevitably enough turned off down one of our favourite roads….

With views like this is it any surprise we like it?!  It runs for 4 miles into some of the most wonderful, remote areas on South Uist, with wonderful outlooks over the South Uist hills and the Loch Druidibeg National Nature Reserve – there is a walk from the spot that this photo was taken which takes you into even more remote parts of the reserve – definitely on our list to do although we’ve not managed to get there yet.

Carrying on down the road brings us to the Old Pier of course – and yes, it IS still standing, although yet again a lot more damage has been done by the winter’s storms. One entire chunk has fallen away now and there are many more sections swaying about in the breeze…

…a bit more wall has fallen in too – you need to be quite careful how close to the edges you walk now! Back down the road again and we were stopped – literally – by finding this standing in the road…

…cute eh? And VERY friendly too – it took me a while to get this shot as every time I crouched down he wanted to come and say hello!

Robyn

2 Walks, 5 Chapels & a view...

On Tuesday we headed South down to South Uist. We’d spotted one of the local papers had a route for a “wildlife walk” down at Howmore – and as this was somewhere we’d intended to visit in any case, we decided we’d combine the two things. The walk was another that combined Machair and beach to good effect – and with the sun shining brightly it was definitely a good day for it. We were pleased to see a Corn Bunting part way round, also a Great Yellow Bumblebee – both things you are unlikely to see in many other places, but that seem to absolutely thrive here! In part this is due to the low-intensity farming that’s used here on the Machair – with very few pesticides being brought into play, and the fertilisers that are used being natural ones.

Having completed the walk we wandered along the road a little way to investigate something else that Howmore is well known for – an area of five chapels, all now fallen into disrepair, but considered of national importance nonetheless.

Naturally being Uist there are no fences, ticket booths, or officious little men in hi-vis jackets, you simply wander around, and treat the place with the respect it deserves. Some of these remains date back to the 12^th century so it would be a crying shame if they were damaged now. They serve as home for an astonishing range of different lichens, mosses and other plants – and as all gardeners will know Dandelions are happy to grow anywhere…

The reason that so much is left is the superb stonework – just look at the arch over this window…

After that we called in at the excellent café in Lochboisdale for lunch, before heading even further South, to South Glendale, just this side of the causeway across to the pretty little Island of Eriskay. As so often happens we spotted a hill that looked like a short climb would give a good view, so we started up, getting distracted occasionally by some interesting looking flowers…

…no, I have absolutely no idea what they are – sorry! Also as so often happens when we got to what we thought was the top of the hill, along comes a higher bit, so we have to climb to that instead. That happened twice this time – pesky hills! It was worth it when we finally got to the top though and saw this view…

…see, told you it was worth the climb!

Robyn

The Golden Hour...

One of the things that I love about the islands, from a photography point of view, is the fantastic light here. At this time of year that is further helped along by the length of the days – there’s still some daylight at 11pm so it’s possible to make the most of that wonderful evening light without having to mess up your entire evening!  We were heading home a little later than planned on Tuesday evening. Having done one walk in the morning, we then got distracted by a hill in the afternoon right down in the bottom of South Uist. Thankfully our time is our own so it didn’t matter a bit that it was nearly 8pm by the time we got back to the car, but it did mean a change of plans for dinner, and that, in turn, meant that we were heading back up towards the cottage just as the sun was making its way down. The light was getting richer and richer as we were driving along, and my thoughts inevitably turned to possible spots to get some nice shots…

…You might remember that I got a very similar shot to this one a few years ago shortly after dawn – a totally different style of photo as the colours in that were all cool blues and greys. This was taken from the middle of the causeway across Loch Bee, a massive body of water mid-way up South Uist, which is home to huge numbers of Swans. A couple of parking areas have been created off the road, mainly I suspect to stop people just stopping ON the causeway! Crossing over to the other side this shot presented itself…

…again showing off the richness of that light. You can just see the swans in the background of that shot too – all those little white marks? Mute Swans!

Robyn