This week we escaped the heat and have been enjoying the much cooler climate of the Outer Hebrides.

The archipelago has nineteen inhabited islands but we spent the week investigating the wildlife on just five of them that are linked together by causeways: Berneray, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Eriskay:

The western margins of the islands are covered in glorious machair, low lying coastal grassland growing on windblown shell sand. It is one of the rarest habitats in Europe, famous for its plant variety and vitally important for bird populations.

The 2022 population census recorded just 1,574 permanent residents on North Uist. Only 300 of these live in the capital, Lochmaddy, and the rest are spread out across the island in extremely low density:

Every day of the holiday we visited wonderful beaches that we mostly had entirely to ourselves:

The Outer Hebrides are almost entirely off the main gas grid and rely heavily on tankered oil, and so peat remains an important supplementary fuel to reduce heating costs for the households. However, the tradition of peat cutting is slowly declining as the generation that knows how to cut and stack peat passes on. Additionally, since peatlands sequester carbon, strict regulations are now in place in an attempt to ensure sustainable harvesting:

There were very few hotels and restaurants on the islands. The food shops were nearly all smallish Co-ops, although these were quite well stocked with fruit and vegetables. Not always though:

Over a hundred and ten traditional shielings remain on North Uist, with their thatched roofs held down with boulders:

But these days the home below is much more representative of the sort of place where people live:

Although some things do still need to be held down with rocks:

On the first morning of our stay we were booked onto a boat trip from Kallin Harbour, taking us out into the waters around the uninhabited island of Ronay. We saw at least six white-tailed sea eagles:

The eagles have learnt that it is often worth their while following fishing boats, as well as wildlife boats such as ours, where a single fish was inflated with air and put into the water:

A white-tailed eagle is often referred to as a ‘flying barn door’:

We also saw several golden eagles on the boat trip. The breeding female golden eagle on this territory was lost last year but a new female has now arrived. They didn’t nest this year but there are great hopes that they will breed next year.

The rest of the week was spent travelling around the islands in the minibus seeing what wildlife we could find.

We also saw hen harriers every day. This female was just about to catch a vole:

Red throated, black throated and great northern divers were seen over the course of the week:

By the end of the week we had ninety species on our bird list which is not an enormous total but there were some very good things on it! For the first time ever Dave and I heard corncrakes singing, as they start their second broods, which is something we had always wanted to do.

It wasn’t just birds that we saw:

On one of the beaches several species of jellyfish had washed up. Blue, compass and moon jellyfish here:

I was delighted with my first ever sighting of a large heath butterfly. This is the virtually spotless scotica race of the butterfly which is only found in northern Scotland

I had also never seen this moth before. It’s a true lovers knot, a heathland specialist with its larvae feeding on heathers:

This common hawker was a new species of dragonfly for me:

The islands are a stronghold for rare bumblebees including the great yellow bumblebee and the moss carder bee that feed on the flower-rich machair:

On our last day we were driving to a beach but had to abandon the minibus because the track was flooded:

We continued of foot but when we crested the dunes to look down onto the beach, we found to our surprise that we were not alone:

The Highland cattle were milling around enjoying themselves in the shallows and on the sand.

It was a wonderfully atmospheric sight and we sat for ages watching them all in the sunshine. It will remain in our memories as one of the highlights of the trip.

The last stop to finish up our final day was at the ancient stone circle overlooking Langass Loch – a very photogenic spot indeed:

At 6am the next morning we left our hotel and began our long journey home, this time travelling on the Caledonian overnight sleeper train down from Inverness, arriving shattered but happy towards lunchtime the next day. We might only be a small nation, but the Outer Hebrides to the east coast of Kent still seemed a very long way indeed.

We had always hoped to one day be able to experience what life is like in the remote Outer Hebrides. We probably saw them at their best this week, when they were in flower and in such lovely weather, and we were delighted to have finally got ourselves there.