New Month

After a

 Monday May 1

Another leisurely start to the day - and another grey overcast to set the scene. This did change late afternoon, the sky gradually changing to a sunny blue with a few clouds. 

The island of Benbecula is reached via a causeway from North Uist via Grimsay. In fact, one doesn't notice the journey between the three island, it's seamless.

In 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie was caught in a storm and forced to land on Benbecula. The population of Benbecula were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause, and smuggled him off the island to safety, as the song has it: "over the sea to Skye".

In 2006, local residents took control of parts of the island in a community buy-out. The previous landowners, a sporting syndicate, sold their 372-square-kilometre (92,000-acre) estate, which included Benbecula, South Uist and Eriskay for £4.5 million to a community-owned organisation known as Stòras Uibhist, which now manages the land in perpetuity.

After a supermarket shop in Balivannich,  we drove on to park overlooking what is known to birders as Stinky Bay. Named because of the large amounts of rotting seaweed which washes up on the beach. I've never found it particularly smelly, a bay near the Range is much worse. The tide was out. When viewed through binoculars, the mass of seaweed was alive with feeding waders. Summer plumaged  Turnstones, beautifully camouflaged, tossing great lumps of seaweed like athletes at the Highland games. Sanderling, Dunlin and Ringed Plovers, delicately picking through the detritus.

 

So difficult to get a photo of the activity  - but I always try, A juvenile Iceland Gull oversaw the activity, preening on top of a rock. Another rocky island was full of sleeping Eider Ducks.

 

Via couple of lochs, picking up Little Grebe, Gadwall, Shoveller, Tufted Duck, Sand Martins and Swallows. 

Committee Road was beckoning. We needn't have bothered . In late afternoon/early evening sunshine, everywhere looked lovely, but it was almost birdless. Until the final part of the turnaround, when a male Stonechat and a Wheatear brightened our day. 

 

I probably take photos of Wheatears every time I am able  to do so, seeking perfection. Does that ever happen?