Christine's walking & birds blog

About twenty minutes later I was lucky to spot a group of Manx shearwaters (15-20) as they converged with the ferry and flew across the bows.

There were a few great skua sightings, but I probably saw no more than three individuals during the whole trip.

I spotted one small pod of dolphins but saw no sign of whales. At Stornoway we had to disembark (after a long wait while the vehicles exited) via the car deck - the passenger gangway being still out of service. I concentrated hard as we sailed back to Ullapool but the sea was fairly quiet. By the time we were approaching the Summer Isles I thought it would be safe to relax and finish off my Maltesers. Unfortunately they had been in the top of my rucksack, in the sunshine, and had melted! I didn't realise this immediately though, and in no time at all I had chocolate all over my fingers - at which point, a birder called out "Manxie!" and I managed to miss the most promising little flurry of birds on the return trip. Typical. Never mind, it had been a nice, bright day (although a bit on the windy side) and I did see other birds: puffin, guillemot, razorbill, fulmar, kittiwake, gannet, shag, white-tailed eagle - and, at Stornoway, common tern and grey heron.