Our last full day on North Uist…

The day has started quite grey and cold so it’s lucky we have seen most of the island at its best already.  While I was writing two days worth of blog posts, Peter went out with his close-up lens and took some more pics of wildflowers.

Common Storksbill

Doves Foot Cranesbill

Bugloss

Charlock

We got to Cladach Kirkibost by about 2.30pm for our last meal there for this year.  We had the soup again but this time the big version (and I mean BIG) which is served with either brown bread or a cheese scone.  I had the cheese scone – warm and delicious.

We were planning to have cake afterwards but were so full up we bought some as a takeaway!

We then drove back down to Benbecula in search of the Co-Op we had seen as we drove up from South Uist the other day.  We have run out of Pimms and the small Co-Op at Sollas doesn’t seem to stock it.  Having driven much further south than we expected and just about to give up, we saw it in the distance.  It turned out to be a much bigger store and we bought the last two bottles!  The staff seemed particularly friendly.

Benbecula itself is very flat and frankly pretty boring but it seems to house quite a large population and is home to an airport.  We took a detour around the coast and found what I think is Stinky Bay, home to a huge Eider population.

There were certainly plenty of Eiders there, complete with ducklings, but we were pleased to see some Shelduck families as well.

Eider

Shelduck

As usual the male Shelduck is looking out for trouble!

We passed a garden and a hen with a couple of chicks…

…and a male Hen Harrier flew overhead.

More lovely water lilies

King of the castle!

We topped off our day with yet another sighting of a Short-Eared Owl flying past a house

Tomorrow is ‘moving on day’ but we’ve seen quite a lot of birds and wildflowers on the Uists and it’s been great.