Four Hebridean islands in five days (1 Viewer)

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

The original idea for this trip was to visit South Uist, but as I don't have a car it looked like a lot of ground to cover so instead I decided to base myself on Barra. This had the added advantage that I could bag four islands whilst still getting in the long sea ferry journey. It isn't quite possible to get there in one day as the Oban train gets in just a short while after the daily ferry leaves so the first night I stayed in Oban. For a change as well as walking the harbour I climbed up into Dunollie wood and got a few woodland species for the list including a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker. There was a close up Red Throated Diver in the harbour in the morning whilst I waited for the ferry to leave on its five hour trip as well as the usual Black Guillemots, of which I counted 16.

Much of the first half of the journey there isn't much bird life to see as you sail along the Sound of Mull but once in the Sea of the Hebrides things picked up with Gannets and Kittiwakes then quite good numbers of Manx Shearwaters. I thought I would be too early for these but they seemed to be in the same area on the way back so unclear if they are still migrating? Anyway this was the first time I'd seen and identified them.

We arrived in Castlebay on time at 3.45pm on day 2 and I checked into the Castlebay hotel which is directly above the ferry terminal. Of course anyone doing such a trip will already know that the Oban ferry leaves very early and yes you will hear the tannoy safety announcements when you are still trying to sleep! The hotel has a modest garden and a few garden birds to entertain, plus some interesting stuff flying over if you stare out long enough including Ravens and flocks of Whooper Swans. You can also see a few sea birds from bedroom windows most notably Black Guillemots again which like swimming around the castle in the bay.

to be continued...

 

[JWN Andrewes]

I look forward to reading this, it's a part of the country I've yet to visit. What time of year did you visit?

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

Day 3. Today I set off on foot to go to the second island Vatersay via the causeway. It is possible to get a bus but its a reasonable walk although the climbing bit of road approaching the causeway is a bit tough. It was worth it as near the top I caught sight albeit briefly of my first Wheatear of the trip and indeed year. Off the causeway on Vatersay there was a golden period when I managed to first flush my first self-found Snipe, a bird which has bugged me for some time. Luckily I managed to follow it by eye and find it quickly in the grass where I snapped it with my camera phone before moving off to avoid disturbing it too much. This same strip of pasture produced a pair of Ringed Plovers on the way back. The other highlight in this spot was a Great Northern Diver which was sitting in the bay quite close to the causeway. There were also Stonechats and Meadow Pipits in abundance and I was to see lots of both over the week. I didn't manage to cover as much of Vatersay as I had anticipated. One issue with the road here as on Barra is that the level of traffic could be high at times or at least enough to force you to keep hopping out of the way which can slow progress quite a bit. I was quite baffled where they were all going as the map suggests not many buildings to go to. Total species count was a modest 24. The weather wasn't that great which hampered camera and audio equipment usage, in fact I wasn't able to any audio recording at all.

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

I look forward to reading this, it's a part of the country I've yet to visit. What time of year did you visit?

I was there last week.

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

Day 4. The plan for the next two days was to go north, firstly on Barra then via another ferry. Day 4 I caught the bus from the ferry terminal at 8.45 and travelled to Eolingarry which is reached after it has dumped people off at the north ferry port at Ardmor - although I was the only person on it. This bus service can be very good and the driver is very helpful but you need to be very careful with the schedule as much of it is by advance request only.

The weather was much better this day and I was able to do some audio recording too. Within five minutes of getting off the bus I'd managed to flush another Snipe! I walked due north along the road and for once I had the place to myself. However like most of Barra either side of the road tends to be crofting fields fenced off with barbed wire and accessing the land can be difficult. I was able to get to the shore on the western side of the road and there was another Diver in the sea quite close to shore but there was a lot of swell and I haven't been able to ID it from pics which were difficult to obtain as it kept disappearing.

At the terminus of the road the map suggests a track leading to the shore however this actually consists of a field with young bullocks in it. I got the feeling this was not random chance...so I decided to pass.

The bus picking me up doesn't come back to Eolingarry so it meant I had to track back along the bus route if I wasn't to walk all the way home. The choices had been go to the airport or carry on to Ardmor road end (sic - NOT the ferry port!) so I chose the latter and had to get a bit of a move on to make sure I was there on time. The airfield is the beach and a large section of beach is marked Do Not Enter which was a bit frustrating, I don't have a scope but there were some waders at the water edge however this is a long way out. There was a Buzzard circling over the area getting mobbed by gulls. My first Skylarks were followed by a nice flock of Twite feeding on the ground allowing good pics. Lapwings were commonplace in the fields flying up calling.

I made better progress than expected so explored a bit of the road turning off to the ferry before going back to the bus stop. The bus picked me up on its way out to the airport where we watched a plane take off across the sand which was a new experience for me. At this point I also spotted my first birder!

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

Day 5 - the Big One. This was my three island trip where I met my original plan of ticking off South Uist. Back on the 845 bus I asked for the ferry stop and made sure I emphasised I was coming back on the 5 o'clock ferry. This is vital as this entire bus trip has to booked at least 3 hours in advance. Interestingly he didn't prompt me about this after he preemptively asked me yesterday what stop I wanted to be picked up from.

The ferry trip to Eriskay is very pleasant as the water is calm as a mill-pond, although on the out leg I saw virtually no birds on the water. I arrived at Eriskay at 9.10 which was my third island of the trip (all new for me). Again there is a bus but again I set off on foot. By now however the weather had gone from one extreme to another and it was set to be very warm indeed. Song birds were similar to those on Barra and Vatersay but we were less disturbed hear so could enjoy Skylarks, Wheatears and Meadow Pipits as well as tons of Starlings doing lots of mimicry.

After passing through the main village noting the coffee shop for later reference I headed down to the causeway connecting Eriskay to South Uist. Unlike the one I used to walk over to Vatersay this one is about a mile long with one gentle bend in it and to be honest it isn't a great experience to walk over especially with no footpath. It resembles a dragstrip so again lots of hopping out of the way especially when cars were coming both ways. There wasn't a great deal of bird life to see - a pair of Great Black backed Gulls on a rock then a trio of Razorbills. One of these later swam quite close alongside me and allowed some very nice closeup photos.

Around noon I reached South Uist, my fourth island of the trip! The problem was I was was overdressed with heavy winter coat and large pack and this was starting to slow me down. A few birds congrated just past the causeway including my first Shelduck and Redshank of the trip and some Red breasted Mergansers.

There is a T junction just off the causeway so I took the East fork which just leads to one croft and had a very pleasant but hot walk along there, a pair of Stonechats came and perched on a wire and sang for me which I got some good recordings of. After 1km I reached the sheep wash where I turned around, walked back to the T junction then took the main road which goes west along the coast more. Past some houses I finally got my first Dunnock of the trip. At the end of the first bay and edge of East Kilbride the heat and dehydration finally got the better of me. In addition as I was getting a late ferry with a prebooked bus to pick me up I basically had to guarantee I made the ferry I said I was going to be on!! (There is one more ferry at 7pm I think but I wouldn't have anyone to pick me up and my phone had no signal most of the time here).

I got back to the village across the causeway and downed a coffee after which I revived a bit and got to the ferry nicely in time. The trip back was a bit better and my fourth bird list of the day (a complicated one, like which island do I count causeways under?) I saw Eider, Black Guillemots, Gannets and Shags. My chauffeur-bus driver dropped me off right outside my hotel and was the real star of the trip. We got back about 5.50pm just in time for a quick shower before dinner.

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

Day 6. After yesterday's heatwave inevitably it just poured with rain from 7 am to 4 pm. This wiped out my tentative plan to go up into the hills to see if I might find something on the slopes of Heabhal, the highest point on Barra. After reaching the foot of Heabhal and abandoning that idea I didn't have much of a plan B so I just carried along the road to the next settlement which is Breibhig. This has a small bay and jetty but the only item of interest in the area was the first Reed Bunting of the trip. There were some distant divers in the bay but the rain was making viewing and especially photography all but impossible.

After that I thought I would try the other side of the island except this meant quite a bit of walking. I grabbed a quick coffee back in Castlebay at the tourist information place and then headed north west along the main road picking up the first Mute Swan of the trip along the way. This bit of road was truly horrendous as everyone in Barra seemed to be out in their car (weekend shop?) and I was constantly off in the wet verge or getting sprayed by passing vehicles. I had briefly considered ditching my pack at the hotel and this turned out to be a mistake. Eventually I reached a short section of accessible dunes and rocky coast although it also double as a sheep field but at least it had a style, I think this is just about the first one I'd seen all week. There are two lochs, the large is Loch Tangasdal and not directly accessible (barbed wire) and the other is na Doirlinn. It wasn't clear whether I could get away with walking to the edge of this second one, I did make it but flushed yet another Snipe then felt a bit guilty at disturbing things so I left it. I had had this mad plan of getting over to the far side of these two lochs and walking back over rough country but the conditions made this not wise I trudged back along the road. I got back to the hotel at 2.30pm having clocked 20.77km walking in non-stop rain.

Now the real problem hit me - I'd forgotten about packing for the ferry home! By this time my backpack and two thirds of my clothes including my boots were soaked and I already had the alarm set for 4am to make the ferry because I was going back on a Sunday and the ferry leaves 30 minutes earlier on Sundays. So I spent most of the remainder of Saturday desparately trying to dry stuff out. If only I'd been smart and dropped my pack off back in Castlebay at lunchtime eh.

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

Day 7. I prayed it wasn't raining and got lucky as we had a dry day for the journey home, this time the ferry and trains synched better as the ferry goes at 5.15 am. The birding was an almost carbon copy of the out leg with the flocks of Manx Shearwaters seemingly in the same place. Finally as we passed the castle at the end of Mull the first seen Canada Geese of the trip flew in front of us. I had a coffee in Oban and comfortably got the next train back to Glasgow which got in about 3.20pm.

So is birding Barra on foot a good idea? Depends what you want. If you don't mind being tied largely to one road and/or using a rather infrequent bus give it a go. It was of course very windy so some optical/audio stuff might be restricted. But using foot, bus and one ferry I managed to visit four different islands and I'm glad I did it. Plus I've started a list for South Uist that should be easy to add to if and when I do a full blown visit in the future. The actual birds may not be the most dramatic - it was pretty good for divers and if you are good on them and/or have a scope you may get more than I did.

Below is my best pic of the trip, the Great Northern Diver from Vatersay.

View attachment DSC03693.JPG

 

[delia todd]

That airport at Eoligarry is wonderful, isn't it.

A great report so far LBoBNC!!

 

[LittleBitOfBreadNoCheese]

I have one more species to add now I've had confirmation of my Golden Eagle sightings on Vatersay. This is the first one I've seen in decades so really pleased. Here it is just before it disappeared...