Summer Holiday

Short-eared Owl - Asio flammeus. North Uist, Outer Hebrides

My last blog post was about the start of our journey to the Outer Hebrides, which for a number of reasons was a holiday that nearly didn't happen. Thankfully it did, but it was an exceptionally close call.

One reason that nearly scuppered the holiday was a lack of birds. A pre-trip recce had shown only three Short-eared Owls on the islands, where normally they would number up to a dozen per day. Naturally this caused us to think long and hard about cancelling, before we had to pay the balance on the trip. However, we decided to go ahead and one of the main reasons was to renew acquaintance with the guys who ran our visit to Mull last year, along with our fellow guest on that trip, Lister Cumming.

The drive over to Mallaig from Dunblane was dry and uneventful apart from an unusual experience with a cashpoint machine at Morrisons in Fort William. As we waited to board the afternoon ferry to Lochboisdale on South Uist it began to rain and it was still raining when we docked at the other end. 

That made for an unpleasant drive to our accommodation on North Uist, but a warm welcome from our host Marcus Conway awaited us and a welcome hot meal prepared by his chef Craig. The accommodation was a beautiful and well appointed house right on the shoreline and perfectly placed for the job at hand. After dinner, a plan for the week was agreed and we turned in to get some sleep before an early start next morning.

A quick coffee at 5am and we were on our way. Within a couple of miles we had a great sighting of a Red Deer stag and in less than an hour after leaving, we were photographing a pair of Short-eared Owls out hunting. We had a successful session before returning to base for breakfast at 10am. 

Most of us then felt the need for a siesta and followed this with a late lunch, then back out again by 3pm. This session was mainly with waders and lasted a good couple of hours before we went back to base for dinner. Once refuelled, we were back out again and headed to the tern colony at RSPB Balranald. An hour was spent there, then it was back on the trail of the SEOs. 

By 9pm we were successful and half an hour of watching bagged us a lot of images before the light turned too gloomy and we packed up for the day.

That was pretty much the way the whole week progressed and it was very successful, if a little tiring. Early starts and late finishes with meals slotted in as and when, with Marcus constantly going the extra mile to ensure we got what we were after. It was hard to believe we'd agonised about cancelling, on one day alone we saw 24 different SEOs just on North Uist.

Of course we weren't limited to SEOs, there were many other species on offer, although as per usual we only heard the Corncrake. We had a few Hen Harrier sightings, more than on our trip to Mull last year, but by far the most common birds were the Oystercatchers. We visited a few locations where there were plenty of Terns to photograph. Waders were in abundance, there was the odd Grey Seal and a chance encounter with an Otter. Added to all of that were some excellent landscape opportunities and, particularly in the evening, some wonderful golden light.

But the main aim of the trip was the Short-eared Owls and we were well satisfied on that score. Definitely a location we'd happily visit again.

All too soon the trip was over and we began the long journey back to Dorset. An early start to catch the 7am ferry, before a solid day of driving, via Dunblane and a welcome lunch laid on by Margaret and Lister, to an overnight stop in Cheshire. A more leisurely start on the Sunday saw us back home by mid-afternoon with a lot of memories to look back on and a few thousand images to process.