Mark Lew1s
My real name is Mark Lewis
The usual Sanday team decided they were due an extra week’s holiday prior to the Sanday trip (a warm up?) in September, and given the timing, we decided upon a week exploring South Uist (with a little excursion over to Barra on one of the days). We were hoping for a decent selection of American waders but of course at that time of year we had our fingers crossed for some small stuff from the east as well. The hoped for goodies would all be set against a backdrop of great scenery and a supporting cast of fantastic local birds too, which always makes for a fabulous mix, and as it happened, the weather turned out OK too! What more could anyone ask for?
We based ourselves at Stilligarry between the 13th and the 20th of September, which was a great location in terms of driving to sites further north and south, and was also ideally placed for birding on foot, e.g. around the Howmore area. It’s not a great location for a shop or a pub, but to be honest, not many places are on South Uist.
What follows is a rather personal take on each days birding with added highlights from the rest of the gang.
Day 1
As with so many of these types of trip, the fun starts before you even get there. We had a long drive across mainland Scotland and then Skye in order to make our afternoon ferry at Uig. Not many highlights along the way (although one of the other cars picked up a black grouse somewhere) but on getting to Uig the sky darkened to the shape of a white-tailed eagle, which was great fun. The ferry crossing also delivered. It was flat calm (although a little hazy) which made cetacean spotting from the boat a doddle. We had a few minkes and harbour porpoise, but the main highlights were the several hundred common dolphin that we managed. Some of these remained on the edges of where you could effectively see, but others were a lot more obliging and came pounding in toward the vessel to put on a great show. Birds were a bit thin on the ground but included some very large rafts of manxies, a few black guillemots, and singles of storm petrel and sooty shearwater. We arrived into Lochmaddy in the evening and then headed to our first stake out, the co-op at Creogarry. After filling the car with a few solid and liquid essentials, and meeting up with one of the other teams that were already on-island, we went off to look at a spot where the boys had had a citrine wagtail previously (and a buff-breasted sandpiper very nearby). There was nothing out of the ordinary while we were there, but a flyby male hen harrier was great, and it was smashing to spend an hour or so chatting and soaking up the evening sunshine
We based ourselves at Stilligarry between the 13th and the 20th of September, which was a great location in terms of driving to sites further north and south, and was also ideally placed for birding on foot, e.g. around the Howmore area. It’s not a great location for a shop or a pub, but to be honest, not many places are on South Uist.
What follows is a rather personal take on each days birding with added highlights from the rest of the gang.
Day 1
As with so many of these types of trip, the fun starts before you even get there. We had a long drive across mainland Scotland and then Skye in order to make our afternoon ferry at Uig. Not many highlights along the way (although one of the other cars picked up a black grouse somewhere) but on getting to Uig the sky darkened to the shape of a white-tailed eagle, which was great fun. The ferry crossing also delivered. It was flat calm (although a little hazy) which made cetacean spotting from the boat a doddle. We had a few minkes and harbour porpoise, but the main highlights were the several hundred common dolphin that we managed. Some of these remained on the edges of where you could effectively see, but others were a lot more obliging and came pounding in toward the vessel to put on a great show. Birds were a bit thin on the ground but included some very large rafts of manxies, a few black guillemots, and singles of storm petrel and sooty shearwater. We arrived into Lochmaddy in the evening and then headed to our first stake out, the co-op at Creogarry. After filling the car with a few solid and liquid essentials, and meeting up with one of the other teams that were already on-island, we went off to look at a spot where the boys had had a citrine wagtail previously (and a buff-breasted sandpiper very nearby). There was nothing out of the ordinary while we were there, but a flyby male hen harrier was great, and it was smashing to spend an hour or so chatting and soaking up the evening sunshine