Traigh Mhor – where planes land on the sand…

I’m sorry to have to report that the weather is not good again today.  Peter took these bird photos from the comfort of Bessie, away from the wind and rain.

However, not to be deterred, we set forth in the afternoon on a drive down the road towards Castlebay and parked near the airport at Traigh Mhor.  There was a huddle of people under umbrellas, obviously waiting for a flight to come in and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before the Twin Otter plane taxied in along the sand.

Within minutes, the pilot and co-pilot appeared walking towards the terminal, followed soon after by about twelve passengers and their luggage.  Two passengers were seen climbing the hill opposite, complete with wheelie suitcases!  Odd because the map shows no settlement on the other side – only a stretch of beach…

It was only a matter of 20 minutes or so before the baggage truck was driving out to the plane again with another load, soon followed by another line of passengers, some of whom stopped for the obligatory photo next to the plane.  I remembered we did the same 42 years ago!  It seems the novelty of an airport on a beach will never wane, although research shows that there has been a scheduled service here since 1936.

We didn’t see another pilot go out to the plane so can only surmise that there were two crews.  Before long, the plane was given the go-ahead and started taxi-ing back down the beach, rising gracefully into the air and flying back over our heads.

We decided to pay another visit to the jetty to see what birds might be around…

and discovered this line-up of Red-breasted Mergansers, who always look as though they’ve had a bad hair day!

Suddenly they took to the air, looking just like the flying duck wall ornaments so popular in the 50s.

In a nearby field, this handsome ram posed for a picture:

Back at the campsite, Peter walked down to the beach.  The tide was in now but he managed to get these shots of a Whimbrel doing a vertical take-off and a small bunch of Turnstones with their exotic markings, together with the odd Dunlin and Black-headed Gull.

The weather really hadn’t improved much over the day and I think Mary might have felt sorry for us as her small son, Seamus, appeared at Bessie’s door with a gift of freshly baked scones, still warm from the oven.

It’s small things like this which can really make the difference and we tucked into the delicious scones as we hunkered down for another stormy night ahead.