Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Yesterday: What a strange pelagic! To begin with, the lady in the terminal warned me that there could be disruption with the 17.30 sailing from Ullapool. I couldn't really see how that would affect us - unless it meant that the disruption would begin in Stornoway - so I bought the tickets anyway, and then regretted that I hadn't waited to consult Greger, who had diverted to Tesco to buy a newspaper. It wouldn't normally be too much of a hardship to get a B&B in Stornoway for the night should we get stuck, but it would mean he would miss his Spanish lesson the following day. Anyway, when he arrived, he said it was okay. Next, we were informed that the passenger gangway was undergoing repairs (the Stornoway one has been out of action for two or three years), so we would have to exit the terminal building again, and walk round to enter via the car deck.
A white-winger on the dockside was probably the viking gull, and a small bird that flew over us and seemed to land somewhere on the ferry was possibly a house sparrow. The weather as we set sail down Loch Broom was wonderful; warm and sunny, with a relatively calm sea and good visibility. Trouble was, there was nothing much to see (well, apart from various military vessels on the horizon, taking part in NATO manoeuvres). As we neared Stornoway, the wind got up quite suddenly, and I decided I could safely eat my lunch. Needless to say, I then spotted a Manx shearwater - but couldn't do anything sensible with my camera as I had my hands and mouth full of bacon sandwich.
At Stornoway, there was a shorter wait than usual to get off via the car deck, probably thanks to less traffic. The vehicle queues waiting to board also seemed sort of shrunken - just two large trucks, and only small campervans (no "great whites"). Back on board, the difference from the morning trip was immediately obvious. The wind was quite strong, and it was now cold enough to warrant hat and gloves. I was surprised to see two small birds fly over me towards the rear of the boat - and keep going! Were they house sparrows? And where were they going? Somewhere in the Minch an announcement came that the Coastguard would be doing one of its training exercises - and my heart sank. No hope of birds while that went on! Still, it's quite exciting, and some passengers came out from the indoor seating areas to watch two men be winched separately down onto the vehicle deck before one "rescued" the other by taking him up in a special harness.
Towards the end of the trip it was getting impossible to hold bins still in the wind, never mind camera, and I went down to have a hot chocolate before going back up for the slightly more sheltered waters of the Summer Isles and Loch Broom. About fifteen minutes from Ullapool, Greger said "What are they?" and pointed to a small flock of brownish birds flying low over the waves straight into the strong south-easterly wind. "Waders of some sort," I replied, clicking off a few photos as we overtook them. There were eleven of them, and it struck me eventually that they were golden plovers.
Coming into Ullapool, we foot passengers gathered towards the rear of the ferry to exit via the vehicle deck - once all the vehicles were off, of course. The member of staff who was good-humouredly marshalling us was approached by someone dangling her car keys - she couldn't get through the door onto the car deck. Greger and I looked at one another. Why on earth was she trying to access the car deck now? They routinely call drivers to return to their vehicles before the ferry even docks - and now it had docked, and they were already off-loading. Having seen her down the stairs, the man appeared again and called out "Any more car drivers?" and four people stood up from the rear observation lounge where they had been sitting - from where they could easily see the vehicles leaving the ferry just below them! The man escorted them to the head of the stairs and then returned, muttering "We'll get there in the end!" to much laughter.
Presumably the potential disruption was because the strong winds had been forecast - but whether the ferry did sail back to Stornoway this evening, I've no idea.
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
An early distant minke whale was spotted in Annat Bay from the ferry on this unpromising drizzly morning - and the first good bird was a dark-phase Arctic skua, flying low over the water. There were several groups on board and I could only get rail room facing south; I turned now and then to scan the sea to the north and at last saw loads of shearwaters! I managed to squeeze in on the end - but what with the strongish wind and the swift flight of the birds, my pics weren't much cop.
I also had the chance of seeing my first ever Leach's petrel on this trip; a group leader ran over to the south rail to call it down to the birders below - but I resisted the temptation to "twitch". After all, I wasn't one of the (presumably paying) group, while I'm content that the Leach's petrel remains unseen - a potential self-found lifer, to provide as much surprise and joy as today's great shearwater and last year's pomarine skua.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Yesterday: A white-winger was spotted then lost in Loch Broom, as the ferry returned to Ullapool after a windy, sunny pelagic. I shot hopefully into the gathering of gulls - and managed to catch it.
It looks fairly large, but appearances are deceptive - especially with such a rubbish photo; and let's face it, this wouldn't be the first time that a pelagic has ended for me with a sighting of that perennial nuisance, the viking gull.
Saturday, September 05, 2026
After more research I've decided to record the bee spotted on our little local hill more than a week ago as a heath bumblebee (Bombus jonellus). In the info found online, the heath bumblebee is often described as being noticeably fluffy - which certainly fits the individual seen nectaring on the top of the hill in the heather. When Greger and I went up the hill again three days ago, we got a glimpse of something like it but I couldn't get a decent shot. However, there was compensation in a hoverfly that wasn't familiar, which I've finally identified as Eriozona syrphoides (common name bear syrph or bear fly).
I found it on the website skyeinfocus.co.uk and even then almost plumped for one or two similar but wrong species (in other genera) - until I thought "Ah. That could be it!" I must admit I'd never heard of the genus before. Armed with a name, I found further confirmation in Steven Falk's images on Flickr, and others.
As for the broken-belted bumblebee that I might or might not have seen towards the end of my hill-walk on August 30th - well, I'm not so sure. It could be a white-tailed with the central yellow hairs worn away (the lemony yellow of the bands pointing to white-tailed rather than red) while my bee certainly doesn't have the neat look of a broken-belted on the assyntwildlife website. Oh well, at least I've learned about a new bumblebee species, even if I haven't seen one yet. From what I can gather, they are rather scarce.
Meanwhile, things are livening up in Loch Broom, with feeding frenzies of gulls and gannets occurring towards high tide over the last few days. Dolphins and whales might be possible, but if I'm to spot any special gulls, I'll need them to come closer to shore. As I came away from the very windy golf-course spit, I saw this female black darter, zipping around near the allotments.
On the spit itself, just before high tide, were a few common gulls, a handful of oystercatchers, and a dozen ringed plovers; while two adult turnstone were also sheltering from the weather with ten or eleven juveniles.
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Beinn Liath Mhor a' Ghiubhais Li
I set off on this rather gloomy morning unsure whether I would make it to the top. Most of the hills around - including mine - had their heads in cloud; and the Met Office had indicated a fairly high risk of rain. I crossed the stream easily and walked up the stony, 2-kilometre track through the plantation. There was no sign of any bird life. As I took to the saturated, muddy hillside, I was suddenly beset by midges - badly enough to take my rucksack off and fish out the netted hat. Oh dear. Either my head has shrunk, or I'd grabbed Greger's hat; either way, it immediately slipped down over my eyes and was completely useless. In the end I took it off and used it to flap at the midges while holding both walking poles awkwardly in one hand.
Eventually I left the midges behind, and even the seemingly interminable steep, wet area of long grass and heather came to an end. Next stage - the peat hags. Well, at least the ground here is almost level. This gives you a breather for the next stage, which is again grass and heather, with patches of squelchy sphagnum moss. Meadow pipits were the only birds to be seen until half a dozen red grouse erupted from the ground ahead and glided off to the left and out of sight.
Arctic bearberry, its leaves turning a deep red, sprawled characteristically across a lichened boulder.
For obvious reasons, I wondered if it could be a broken-belted bumblebee (which I hadn't heard of before my investigations online this evening); but it doesn't seem quite right for that species, and in any case white-tailed bumblebees can become a bit worn towards the end of the summer. Also, this does have a bright white tail. An adult black darter dragonfly and a colourful frog were also spotted here. As I stepped thankfully onto hard ground at the start of the track, I was besieged by black flies - not midges, larger. I scrambled to get the useless hat out of the rucksack again, but by the time I had succeeded in getting it on and pulling the drawstring tight at the bottom of the netting, it was only to find that some of the flies were in there with me. Eek! Again, I took off the hat and used it to keep flapping the flies away as I made my escape. After a while, they stopped following, and all I had to worry about was the bunion on my left foot becoming a little sore and the fact that it had begun to rain - a light shower that soon passed over. I'd been lucky with the weather - unlucky with ptarmies.
Friday, August 28, 2026
Two days ago I walked up the quarry road in bright sunshine, spotting a bright male common darter in the usual place....
I'm not 100% sure though; it could be a white-tailed bumblebee, although I've seen several of those in the garden this year and this one looked different. More research to be done, as usual. There was also a Sericomyia silentis (referred to sometimes as the bog hoverfly, but tagged yellow-barred peat fly by Steven Falk on Flickr).
Further down the slope, a nice tawny/chestnut moth fluttered into the sparse undergrowth, but I got enough of it in the picture to identify it back home - although it took some time. It's a chevron moth (Eulithis testata).
I was pleased to find that I coped okay with the walk, and Greger (having had another, shorter, bout of his cold) decided he would do it today - in fact, we agreed to do it together. However, we woke up to grey drizzly weather that didn't invite walking anywhere, so I sat down to write this blog instead. The question is, will we get up a sizeable hill this summer? I would love to do a hill-walk for its own sake, but if I don't, there's also the risk that ptarmigan won't make it onto my year list - for the first time since we came to live here. :o(
Saturday, August 22, 2026
The first birds we saw on our walk, between the dunes and the farm, were swooping house martins and swallows, and a young wheatear on the remains of a wall.
The brief call of a curlew drifted up from the machair, and as we made our way down Greger spotted three waders flying past. Two black-tailed godwits and a curlew were keeping company - although a bit later we would see a flock of nine curlews - possibly all juveniles.
We had been aware for some time of small bees flying past us across the beach, and although I couldn't manage to snap one, I caught three of them by chance here, at the top of the frame.
I've seen bees on the beach once before, and they had turned out to be Colletes bees (probably Colletes succinctus); so I knew I should look for their nests up on the cliffs on the far side of the beach. In fact, these bees were heading in that direction. Sure enough, there was a great deal of activity already, with males waiting outside the excavated nesting holes in the sand to mate with emerging females. This was a fairly substantial aggregation, but apparently they can be much bigger! I retreated carefully, fearful of treading on either the bees or the striped snails which speckle the ground here like tiny white flowers.
Good to see proof of successful breeding!
