The Raptor Watching Holiday that became the Wader Watching instead! Tue 1st Sep 09 Journey to Oban
We were late leaving home this morning – it got to 6.30am when normally we are off for 5am……. So this put the pressure on a bit not to linger much on the way just in case anything should go wrong …….. but it didn’t, I drove all the way in lovely weather, arriving on the dockside with an hour to spare! Loading completed and anchor weighed, we settled outside on the top deck to bird watch. The highlight of the journey was two Great Shearwaters – new birds to me – and I had to be told what they were by a fellow birdwatcher – they were right out of my circle of knowledge! I could tell I was looking at something large and two-tone and strangely long-winged with a noticeable bend at the elbow …….. but it might have been days before I worked out which species. I could have attempted a record shot – but I preferred to look properly for once: it could be a long time before I see any more …….. The rest of the sail had Manx Shearwaters, gannets. Guillemots with single chicks and terns while further out and a long way off a feeding frenzy of gannets, gulls and terns had some unidentified petrels in attendance – mere dots over the ocean! A pod of dolphin at one point and almost certainly a White tailed Eagle being chased by ravens (looking like Blackbirds in comparison!) was the sum total of a pleasant sail.
Wed 2nd Sep
We awoke on the campsite to lovely weather and a selection of pied, white and juvenile wagtails picking about thro the other campervans. After a leisurely get up we set off to South Uist headed for Ardimachairs’ North and South Bays. Passing thro Iochader a ‘gang’ of twite were picking around thro rough croft gardens. A single Golden Plover on the beach looked slightly out of place (I was told many years ago that golden plover don’t go on beaches – a plover on a beach is invariably a grey ….. same as grey wagtail don’t perch in trees and buzzards don’t hover …. Someone should have told this juvenile golden plover that it shouldn’t have been there!) All the usual cast were present: dunlin, sanderling, turnstone, ‘oystersnatchers!’, eiders and a lot common gulls among others. The South Bay had an added species with the usual cast– lots of Bar-tailed Godwits. A huge amount of seaweed had been piled up by successive tides and hundreds – if not a few thousand starling were pecking, sorting, jostling and digging thro the smelly weed……. A few were taking time out to sing in the warm sunshine and calm conditions and their normal imitations of greenshank and calling buzzard caused us to look around for a second or two!
The amount of birds here on this well known birding beach caused us to double back to Benbecula and head for ‘Stinkey Bay’ (plenty of seaweed piles up on this beach too!). Passing Oban Liniclate we stopped and scoped 12 Little Grebe, one female Shovelar and 3 female/eclipse Gadwall on this freshwater shallow loch. Stinkey Bay had 2 Knott, lots of turnstone, oyster’s, sanderling, dunlin, eiders and just one Black-tailed Godwit. Somehow the day passed without much happening except riding around and sitting overlooking a variety of wonderfully familiar views. . . .
Thurs 3rd September
Fully recovered from the journey it was up and at ‘em starting off for my most favourite place on the islands – Penninerine ……. Its something to do with the proximity of the sea, the machair, the freshwater loch and the view to the Hebridean Three Peaks, plus the little detour via Howmore, the church and the bridge ………. A Great Skua flew north deceptively lazy in flight yet covering a lot of ground. The beach held the usual cast: sanderling, ringed plover etc and gannets out over the sea. I was surprised to see that yellow pansies and daisies were having a late summer renaissance – previously with earlier in the year visits I was used to seeing these two as starting the machair ‘rush’ so it was interesting to see they were flowering again vigorously in autumn. The copious amounts of yellow rattle ‘hay rattle’ had gone completely to seed. The eye-catching frequent bursts of purple were being provided by huge amounts of devils bit scabious – another surprise late flower for me. The biggest disappointment of this holiday was Ian hoping against hope that there might be one or two Irish Ladies Tresses still just in flower – just a few little florets would have made him a happy man – but no – not a one – all gone. The really annoying hindsight moment was finding out (thank you Joanne at Scottish Nature for the info even tho all had gone) that where I had sat to show Joan a particular bird back in July was right on top of a little colony of tresses ……. They would have been there almost certainly and I didn’t know at the time ……… goes off muttering ‘I must prepare better in future …. Repeat after me – I must ………..’!!
So off we went all the way to the bottom of South Uist to visit the Polacher Stone and see if the otter was still playing in the rocks …… the stone was there as ever thro millennia – the otter was not ………… On the way we clocked up three separate hen harriers – two female and one male! Also plenty swallows and one grey plover.
We finished on Erisky with another search thro a decent patch of late machair and turned up plenty of Autumn Gentian on the rocky outcrops. The weather was fabulous – the heather seemed to be flowering brighter and stronger each day – the light was fantastic and it was warm enough for shirt-sleeves!
Fri 4th September
Back round to Stinky Bay on the way to shopping in Ballivanich. A large flock of golden plover and lapwing at Nunton were just a bit too spread out and too far away for photography. We sat once again and studied the waders in Stinky Bay and pondered the best way to go about photographing them from close up ……….. Shopping over it was off to Balranald the RSPB reserve on North Uist. We ambled down to the bay parking and Ian went off to stalk the waders (that 600 lens was burning a hole in his pocket!) I stayed with the van cos the weather had changed – gone back to normal in fact – cooler, unsettled and windy with gatherings of black clouds and very heavy showers. While sitting idly looking out a peregrine almost took the front off the camper! It cleared the beach of waders and with nothing left to stalk the disgruntled husband came back to the van to wring his trousers out! Later in the evening leaving to go back on site we noticed a couple of golden plover with the lapwing – one was a very well marked adult bird – poss the northern race with the huge white band separating the black throat and chest from the spangled yellow back. Six juvenile Whooper swans were feeding with one of the adults having bred on Loch nam Feithan they look old and big enough to survive to adulthood. I suspect I’m not the only birder who hopes they will be back to breed in the isles again in 2010 instead of going off to the Arctic Circle….
Sat 5th September
We got up, packed up and took our leave of Katie and Allan at the caravan park and moved a couple of miles across to Grimsay Island and our favourite little rented cottage …….. with the sea loch on three sides – tho nowhere near the sea at this point – it’s a long way inland – but the guest book says otters have been seen from the cottage window by other guests – and we did see the golden eagle on our early visit this year – a scant 250-300 yards away from the front door ……….. A rapid unpacking of stuff and a quick bite to eat and off to South Uist to Rubha Ardvule – the most westerly point of the isles. The weather was still unreliable and wanting some height to watch over the sea and beach I chose to park at the top of one of the fields just above the sand cliffs. A huge flock of starlings came closer and closer – finally swarming all around the camper while searching thro the rough grass for grubs.
A juvenile merlin scythed in and grabbed a small bird so fast we don’t know what the prey item was – a meadow pipit most likely. The merlin took its meal under the cliff out of sight. Not long after a large (probably female peregrine) caught a redshank down on the beach and spent 40 mins on the beach and adjacent rocks eating it …….. the only bits remaining were a bit of spine and two wings ……. Soon after a sparrowhawk came thro and got nothing – and you wonder why the waders are nervous?! A buzzard finally completed the raptor watching afternoon. I found two divers out at sea but it was choppy and very difficult to get a long enough look but ‘jizz’ suggested most likely red throated especially when they took flight, heading for Barra, showing humped grey backs and white underbellies. A lot of black and bar-tailed godwits were on the beach with all the more usual waders and our thoughts went back to how to photograph this unexpected bounty ……..
Mon 7th September
(What happened on Sunday I can hear you thinking? No idea there is nothing in my diary, I wasn’t ill and I didn’t attend the local hospital this time – just for a change!! Me and his nibs must have just passed the time enjoying each others company – it had been our 12th wedding anniversary on the Friday …..) So Mon we set off for North Uist and trolled about the north end of the island visiting Scolpaig and what we now refer to as the ‘eagle quarry’ – not that eagles breed here – but they do on the hillside a couple of miles distant and locals set up scopes for visitors and particularly for local school groups to have a distant view of the female and young earlier in the year. The nest is guarded of course by a variety of folk in turn – tho one chappie is a visitor and lover of the isles like us but is retired and alone and spends weeks here educating and watching over the site ……….
Finally we came across a hunting short eared owl – our first sighting 6 days into the holiday. Ian had driven and got me close to one during the June hols so I drove and returned the favour ……. We now both have pics of an owl on a post and can ‘debate’ who got the best shot ……… During the afternoon we had very good views tho still no pics of female (ringtail) harriers at three different spots then a second (and last for this holiday) short eared owl which had no intention of posing for a pic. A text message from Brian Rabbitts the bird recorder told us that a Pectoral Sandpiper had been found at Loch Paible. We went and parked as near as we could and set up the scope. I picked out and watched a strange looking wader – I’ve seen Pectoral before in several places and they put me in mind of a common sand with a dirty breast that is cut off in a defined line – like a little dark cape worn backwards! The wader I was watching reminded me more of a small plain golden plover which after a lot of staring and looking thro the bird book brought the only choice to my mind – a buff breasted sandpiper. Funnily enough another birder later in the week thought he may have seen two of these on the beach at Stinky Bay ……. Neither him nor me had the confidence to call on these birds – I just hope that Brian or one of the other island birders got a better look. The weather by evening was in rapid decline – the wind was increasing by the second and we turned tail and fled back to the cottage. It had got to gale force before dark and opening doors to unload was fraught …….. during the evening Ian went out and turned it slightly so it was backing into the storm-force wind …… during the night I looked out a couple of times to see if it was still there – I kept wondering what we would do if it was toppled into the loch – which not deep beside the cottage – but enough to put seawater into the vehicle and how exactly would we get it back out again ………..
Tues 8th September
The gale tho not quite as bad as the previous evening was still howling so an enforced day indoors watching daytime tv wandering from the kitchen/lounge to the bedroom and back – all of 5 yards with side trips to the bathroom caused by drinking too much tea ……….
Wed 9th September
The storm had passed and the battered islands shone in sunshine again and we set off for North Uist and Langass. We had a long mooch and time spent taking photos of egger and Knotgrass caterpillers, the stone circle of Finn’s People and views of the loch in incredibly brilliant post storm light. The otter showed up but kept to the distant far banking and was fishing and diving hard. Half a dozen young or female mergansers came by and two greenshank dropped in just over the boat house wall. Three buzzard knocked around and quite a few male common hawker dragonflies buzzed around the ditch and sheltered conifers. A worn old and tired looking female common darter sunbathed on the path (I know how she felt after that storm – and I had been in a 3ft thick walled stone cottage during – not out in it like her!) We passed the remainder of the day driving hoping to come around a corner or bend and be close to a ‘shortie’ or a ringtail but our luck was out with these………
Thurs 10th September
Back to Stinky Bay to check the tide which was now coming to full midmorning and watch how and where the waders fed in relation to the high water. Ian jumped out threw the pop-up hide up and weighted it to the sand with branches and rocks and in I got. I sat for two hours and not a wader came anywhere near – they behaved as tho it was most likely wader-catching contraption they had ever seen ………….. Meanwhile Ian desperate with the inactivity and not photographing very much of anything, went stalking the far end of the beach with some good results. Finally I spat out my dummy, burst out of the hide swearing, cursing and flinging stuff around and stormed up the beach to the camper. Later I drove onto the concrete pier and sat with the camera out of the window on the bean bag having weighed up that the birds liked the corner down the side of the pier and I was parked just above them. I got shots but ever so slightly looking down which I don’t like and not close enough – tho I did get pics of a knot in a rockpool on the other side of the pier which were decent enough. Eventually I lost my bottle about the tide and reversed off back to the car park above! Ian had been working his way slowly along towards the birds’ favourite corner, kneeling and squatting to get shots – something I cannot do. He came back to the camper and said ‘get your chair and come and join me’ so we got a chair apiece and went and sat on the tideline facing into the corner of the pier. The birds flew at first but soon came running back. Each time the tide had gone away enough for sanderling to run past between us and the receding water we stood bowed not raising our heads or looking at the birds and moved to the waters edge again. After a few moves they didn’t even fly off and eventually we had them all around us….. It was getting late in the day by this stage but we had some shots – dull and not quite close enough – but better than anything previously.
Fri 11th September
The last day ……. How had it come round so fast? The weather was brighter – the tide a little later in the day so we decided to return to Stinky Bay and sit with the waders all over again! It worked a treat – the weather tho windy didn’t rain; there was a little brightness; no fishermen came down the pier; the birdwatchers and visitors soon realised what we were at and gave us space – avoiding walking down and flushing everything. At one point we watched as the same ringed plover from the previous day walked in from our right (sea on the left) until it was stood under my tripod – then it walked between our chairs (and we were almost touching) and began pulling little black thread worms out of the sand like a little fat magician!! Every few seconds he glanced up and gave me that bright black gaze - I could have reached down and put him in my pocket!! The only thing causing disturbance was the peregrine which came thro on average four times – it missed on all four. We joked that the safest place on the beach was where the ringed plover was under our tripod and chairs!! The sun weakly shone at times and I felt I could see it moving quite quickly from our left to our right as the day progressed. Evening came and we were still taking photographs and exploiting this fantastic opportunity. Its not a wildlife experience I will forget – nor was it expected – sitting on a beach in the open for 7 hours – no cover – no hide – not even the camo bag hide was used – tho we were in dark green jackets and camo trousers – but very recognisable as humans and the birds took no notice of us …….
Sat 12th September
And time to pack up, hoover up, and take that last steady drive down the island to catch the ferry ………. Roll on 2010 – we’re going back out in June and if that comes around as fast as the three visits I’ve made this year – then there’s no need to mope – it will be here before we know it!
Images seem to be slow and unwilling to copy across to this thread tonight - maybe there is a lot of activity on wab galleries - there are more pics on my zenfolio website for those who haven't already seen them - both from this hol and the previous two this year!