I had a busy two days.
The RSPB locals had an otter walk at 10.30 am on Wednesday and an Eagle watch at 7.30 pm on Thursday and I had decided to drive down to Eriskay and cross to Barra between those two events.
No otters were seen on the Wednesday despite the tide being right, etc etc. The otters are not a different species as elsewhere in the UK, these ones just spend more time at sea. Every day they have to wash out the sea water in fresh water which is why these otters are more likely to be seen (ha ha).
A lobster of mussel shells
No otters
Sadly I missed the 1300 crossing to Barra and had to wait for the next one at 16.35. By the time I got to Barra the rain was starting to set in. I drove around Barra, investigated the airstrip on the beach
Barra airport
but I missed the hamlet where Compton MacKenzie had lived and was buried.
Vatersay and the causeway from Barra
The Oban ferry, Castlebay
I drove across the newish causeway to Vatersay – a very unwelcoming island, didn’t find Barra very welcoming either – lots of “no overnight parking” and “no campervans/motorhome” signs.
Memorial to the Catalina crash in 1941 – AND the remains of the plane!
The “Annie Jane” was wrecked in this bay on Vatersay on her way to Quebec from Liverpool with a cargo of emigrants, three quarters of the crew and passengers never got ashore.
Back on Barra I investigated places to eat in Castlebay - which was recognisable as the place where “Whisky Galore” was filmed - and came away unimpressed with the choice, not helped by the rain.
Kisimul Castle in Castlebay Bay built in the C12th, stronghold of the MacNeils. Of course this is the playground of of otters.
Castlebay
Old building in Castlebay
On the single track road, near North Bay, I pulled over to let a van go the other way and it turned out to be a mobile fish and chip van, so I wound down my window and asked the driver if he was stopping somewhere else. No, he said, but if I wanted something he would turn around, park up and cook it for me. So I had all that for a £4.90 fish supper which I sat and ate in a church car park before driving off to park up on Aird Mhor pier to go back to Eriskay the next morning.
Sculpture at Aird Mhor pier – the nearest I’ve knowingly been to otters
Barra/Eriskay ferry
Eriskay pier
Ferry leaving Eriskay pier
Eriskay pier – and the beach “Prince’s Cockle Strand” is where Bonnie Prince Charlie first landed in Scotland in July 1745
The building in the foreground is the pub called “Am Politician” after the SS Politician, the ship that ran aground in the Sound of Eriskay in 1941 (back to “Whisky Galore”)
Merchant mariners’ gravestones
Fab beach
Fab machair
Eriskay ponies are born brown and become grey (well, that’s not new…)
The new causeway linking Eriskay to South Uist over the Sound of Eriskay, SS Politician thought it was sailing through the Sound of Barra, between Barra and Eriskay.
Wheelie bins and telegraph pole
Lochboisdale from across the loch
Petrol filling station/chip shop
Pansies in the machair
Recovered by divers -
another museum, this time the Kildonan. However I wasn’t in it alone. However the old chap collecting the money seemed to me to be seriously mad. His dog kept trying to sneak off and go to sleep, he kept shouting at it and it kept barking back at him. So I will remember those two perpetually shouting/barking at each other.
Loch Sgioport – the Royal Yacht used to moor up here. Round the corner to the left there is an old pier
Friendly ponies
Good colours as there was an offshore thunderstorm
South Uist – and Eriskay and Barra – are still firmly Catholic. This is “Our Lady of the Isles” by Hew Lorimer
View from the sculpture
Lots of storms and rain in the afternoon. I thought the eagle watch would be abandoned but the skies cleared, the wind dropped and would you believe the bloody midges came out! This was the opposite of the otter watch when we geared up for the midges and then it rained. We parked in a quarry, not far from a Forestry Commission pine wood and I thought we would be walking there. However the telescopes were set up in the quarry.
The eagles nest on the ground – their only predator is man, there are no foxes, stoats, weasles. The eagle chick was out of the nest sitting next to the top white rock in the photo. There was only one ‘scope worh looking through it was so far away. While we were the female eagle flew in and just sat about on the rock.
Photo through the ‘scope - the mother eagle is sitting on this rock…
I spent the night in the quarry.
Fab sunset
and there was a lovely sunrise too (see tomorrow.)
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