Thursday, November 02, 2023
Bright, cold weather was a relief after yesterday's wind and rain, and I was called out to Ardmair where I failed to relocate the common scoter of two days' ago but did see a "strange" ferry coming into Loch Broom. I think MV Isle of Lewis is still standing in for MV Loch Seaforth - but this didn't look like either.
Rotten shot, but I just zoomed in and took a snap to see the name, as I couldn't make it out through the bins. It was MV Hebrides, which is sailing daily from Ullapool to Lochmaddy (North Uist) while Uig (on Skye) is having work done on its harbour. Calmac has quite a lot of juggling to do to cover all the routes and get each ship in for annual refit as well; they don't have a spare.
Back in the village I took a walk round the spit and through the camp-site; I was snapping a dark duck in case it was a scoter, even though I was pretty sure it was an eider, when I realised that the whitish bird in the same frame was not the expected black guillemot, but a long-tailed duck.
Like the Ardmair scoter it seemed to disappear into thin air, because scan as I might, I never saw it again! Still, it makes a nice addition to my "seen within one mile of home" list - bringing the total to 120.
