The Uists 2025 Part 2

28th - 29th July 2025

Morning drive, came across a family of red breasted mergansers on Loch Euphort.

Never far from open water on the Uists, lochs and lochans everywhere.

Nice to sea a short eared owl - they really were common, one day Tom saw six.

We decided to go to Barra for the day, catching the 13:00 ferry for the 40 min journey, returning on the 17:30, for £32.20 each way for car and 5 folk.

Had a quick look at Lochboisdale harbour on the way.

The ferry; the journey was very calm.

Saw a few guillemots on the sea

More gannets

Plenty of cormorants

Greylags - genuine wild ones, not farmyard derivatives we have down south.

On Barra we saw the airport with the runway on the beach.

And a Loganair twin otter landed

Really liked Barra, very small, but lovely beaches and blue sea.

Not sure what was happening here, maybe shellfish farming?

Stopped for an ice-cream at Castlebay

Fairly obvious where the village got it's name from

Montbretia added some colour to the countryside

Castlebay from across the bay.

A few hooded crows about, nicer looking than the carrion crows we get down south.

A rock pipit was on a post in the harbour.

Black guillemot from the ferry trip back.

There were a few terns about, and quite a few eider

And razorbill.

Another BBQ after we got off the ferry, as usual, Sam in charge.

Then on the way back, spotted our first white tailed eagle, about half a mile away. By the end of the holiday I think we'd seen seven on the Uists and two on Lewis.

A bit further, and a nice short eared owl by the road, on a post.

Tuesday started rather misty, went for a drive to loch Druidibeag, where an RSPB viewing point showed us where a young white tailed eagle was. The mist lifted quite quickly, but the clouds were low. There were also hen harrier around.

The girls went for a walk from the house - and met these donkeys.

Loch Druidiberg

Another short eared owl.

Then spotted a young cuckoo, which was quite flighty and hard to photograph, near Lochcarnan.

Poor shot of a female hen harrier, saw quite a few over the week, near Caolas Liubharsaigh.

More greylags.

A rather thin buzzard, maybe juvenile, perched by the road.

Male stonechat.

Lapwing

View near Botarua.

Young black headed gulls.

Old style, but nicely done up, croft cottages on Uist.

Drone shots, showing the crofting landscape around Sollas.

A nearby cottage.

Tuesday afternoon we went to Lochmaddy - not that there was much there!

Family of herring gulls tucking into a crab.

Tuesday evening, Sam and I had a boat trip from Kallin harbour around Ronay. The weather was quite dull, but was an amazing trip, in the boat on the left in the picture below. Just 11 passengers and 2 crew. At the start of the trip, in the harbour, there were a lot of midges - one of only two times they troubled us all week. As soon as the boat set sail the midges were no longer a problem.

Recorded the trip on Strava, 16 miles and 2.5hrs (30min extra than advertised). Sailed anti clockwise, went out to sea to start with, saw an arctic skua, gannets, black guillemots and quite a few manx shearwater.

Black guillemot.

And then, a white tailed eagle - which took to following the boat, each time we went into a different bay, soon the eagle would turn up, and land on a rock.

It definitely had a white tail.

Quite a few red dear on the island.

Great black-backed gull.

Eagle

Red deer

Eagle

And then, one of the crew threw a fish out the boat, the eagle came straight down and took it - it was because of this that the eagle had been following, once it had the fish it wasn't to be seen.

The eagles had a youngster nearby, watching, which then flew after the parent bird.

The red deer took to the water to get between small islands.

Another arctic skua.

There were a pair of black throated divers on the sea.

And golden plover, and a turnstone, on nearby rocks.

Then the crew spotted gulls mobbing something out of sight - we went round a small headland to see a golden eagle! The boat got quite close, but the eagle didn't fly away.