Friday, October 15, 2021
Blue skies, sunshine, and a stiff breeze saw us off from Ullapool on our latest pelagic. A white-tailed sea eagle was spotted in powerful but rather ponderous flight among the outer Summer Isles.
Beyond the Summer Isles the wind hit us properly and the sea became exciting - but it was impossible to hold bins and camera steady. A small bird was spotted fluttering in the ferry's wake, seemingly trying to land; it did eventually appear to succeed, flying above the vehicles in the open part of the car deck below us - but it flew out of our sight. Two similar birds were then seen flying alongside - and these were almost certainly redwings; but we don't know what happened to them.
One particular area out in the Minch delivered several dark birds skimming low over the waves; I can't tell if any other species were present, but this seems to be a sooty shearwater.
Once we'd left this interesting spot behind, Greger went down to have some lunch while I battled on in the wind, lurching from rail to rail as I scanned desperately with the bins; but I failed to see anything of note. After a short wait in the Stornoway terminal we re-embarked - and for once we didn't rush up to grab seats on the outer deck, but sat in the coffee lounge while I ate my lunch; I'd got cold on the outward trip and was feeling a bit wind-battered and light-headed. While we sat there, we heard a surprising announcement over the tannoy that we'd never heard before - reminding dog-owners not to take dogs into areas where people were eating, and not to let their dogs sit on seats. Good.
The number of dogs on the ferry has risen dramatically, the boat sometimes resembling a sort of Crufts-on-sea. Later, Greger and I were standing by the litter bin when a woman came out from below with a small dog, stood by the bin - and watched it poo. This was right next to us. She cleaned it up with some paper (not completely satisfactorily, so that we avoided that spot afterwards) - and disappeared again below. It had to happen one day. Surely dog owners know the timings of their pets' digestion and can delay feeding them until they're off the boat! We thought we'd seen everything on a previous trip, when a woman allowed an enormous dog to cock its leg and wee all over the same litter bin; she did pull it away eventually, but not before the wee had started to run across the deck. On that occasion, I warned Greger not to lean on the bin (he hadn't seen what happened) - and a woman sitting in the seats in front of us half-turned round and muttered something to the effect that the woman should have had wet-wipes with her; I didn't say anything, not sure if she was talking to me or to her husband. He didn't answer, however, and the next thing she said left me in no doubt that I was being told off: "You can't blame the dog!" after which she turned away with a sort of offended flounce. FFS! I'm not allowed to blame the dog - as though it's going to be upset if I do! It wasn't even her flaming dog. I wasn't even talking to her.
If you want to know the latest religion, just reverse the letters of god - and there you have what many people worship and idolise these days.
Anyway - back to the homeward trip. As we approached the open sea again I spotted a solitary puffin - a tardy puffin, surely. Fratercula tardica. We failed to spot any definite shearwaters but Greger pointed out a bird ahead of us, flying in towards the boat.
Well, obviously a skua - but not much else is obvious from these poor pics. If the first seems to show a full-chested bird, I think it also shows a head and bill that are too small for Pomarine - while the second picture appears to show the slimmer, more elegant profile of an Arctic skua. I'll go with Arctic, but once again, I can't be sure. We also spotted a distant Bonxie.
A slightly frustrating, but mostly entertaining trip!
