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Rising at 5:20 am, the weather looked good – a blue sky with white wisps, above a grey layer of ground-cloud covering the lower 15-degrees of the atmospheric sphere. Clearing condensation with windows and sliding door open, and back-door half open, I was on the look-out for midges, but a small breeze was keeping them away. By 5:45 am there was a heavy grey sky in the west. A cup of tea, meusli and bread; loos in Loch Maddy; I parked by the small dunes at the north-east end of Berneray (8:10 am; 933816). I was again thinking of doing a trainers walk to rest my feet, but the hilly bits looked like they needed waterproof boots, so after my Achilles problems in my Brashers, I decided to try my Meindls, loosely laced, wearing thin socks but carrying alternative socks and arch-support insoles. It was the coldest day for quite a while and a keen breeze was blowing so I put on my down jacket and cag. I tried walking along the grass edge of the dunes, just above the beach, since the tide was high. The edge was difficult and the beach widened, so I moved down onto the sand – strewn with thrashed seaweed pulp. Dunlins and redshanks scurried along the shoreline in their groups and then flew off as a flock of hundreds, and then returned, scurrying and stabbing with straight bills, while large gulls floated lethargically in flotillas.
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| Old boat near Lag na Muice |
As the hill edge became soggier, with patches of primrose and yellow and purple vetches, I cut a diagonal rise to my left, through dancing heads of cotton-grass. Six geese honked past, heading north towards Harris, and the sun shone through (9:35 am). A skylark sang and oystercatchers passed sounding their alarm. I passed a small cairn and noticed a beach ahead. A beige bird with a large head passed within forty metres, using deliberate wing downstrokes followed by gentler upstrokes, moving so lightly and gently on the currents of air, as though a lighter smaller bird than its profile would suggest – my second short-eared owl sighting of the day. Passing over the rise, I realised that the beach below was the top of the continuous five kilometres of beach that runs along the north-west of Berneray. Not wanting a long and potentially monotonous walk along the sands, I turned to weave between south-west and south, then south-east to Ben Sheibhe. As I ascended to the music of the skylarks, the common butterworts displayed purple flowers waving on slender stalks. Reaching an almost-ridgeline, I met a 4-wheel vehicle route of worn grass. Two carrion crows and an oystercatcher stood separately, well-spaced from each other, and then departed almost silently – just the sound of the wings flapping in the breeze. I was surprised to see the carrion crows. I thought their territory did not reach into the North-West of Scotland – this being the territory of the hooded crow instead.
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| View of South Harris from Beinn Shleibhe |
Departing from the trig point (10:35 am), I startled a bird of prey which rose from a hollow behind a rock – beige-brown with a short neck, long tail and a white rump. It was a hen harrier that had been resting on a south-slanting sun-warmed rock, sheltered from the north-west wind by another upright rock. I headed towards the second hill of Berneray, Cnoc Bhuirgh, not sure whether I would find a route through any fences that might separate the crofts.
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| Ruined farmhouse below Beinn Shleibhe |
I turned left and ambled slowly down the lane, feeling weary. A skylark sang above my head, while lapwings flapped about making their “car-alarm whines” and cries. The outline of northern Skye stood clear, the sea glistened in the sun and I realised that sun-cream was required. Walking around a small headland (924818), a group of divers meandered, making occasional dives, while two seals curled up like bananas, tail and head raised, central torsos on the weed-covered rocks close by me. Further along sixteen more seals, brown, mottled-brown, beige, cream, lay slumped on warm rocks as another seal cruised slowly around. I found myself a comfortable ledge of rock to rest on too and four geese flew past. A cruising seal edged up through the seaweed to join the two on my left, slowly squirming and hoisting its way onto a rock and settling down. Curious noises – snorting, snoring noises and grunts along with an assortment of sounds more akin to Mr Bean, came from each side.
Then another pup on my left swam under the seaweed, broke the surface in the centre of a continuous disc of rocks and weeds, got its front half out and had some sort of constrained conversation with the largest seal and then submerging, disappeared, only to reappear after a few minutes to join this largest member of the group from the open water. Was this Mummy?
Unable to rest any longer, I ambled south to the ferry terminal junction, where snipe were displaying, then across the causeway and back again. A couple were walking along the road, both dressed in dark sombre green from head to toe, binoculars around their necks – birders, no doubt. I asked if they’d seen the snipe. “Yes, wonderful,” she said. “We call it the goat of heaven,” he said, in his European accent – referring to what our bird-books call “drumming”, which I hear as a high “whorra-whorra-ing” – an almost “bleating” sound produced by their tail feathers.
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| Standing stone near Borgh, Berneray |
I headed for the gap in what is marked out as fence lines on the map (96-degrees) – going through some rather boggy ground. Skylarks were singing, but the lapwings set up a commotion, letting me know I was “getting warmer” as I approached their most “sacred” places. I cautiously and carefully watched my step, in case of nests. I then startled a snipe, which broke cover at the very last moment, beating its wings, running along the ground; waited for me to pursue, and beat and fluttered along the ground again. Looking at where it had come from, I saw no sign of a nest - just an unlikely, soggy, cup-shaped hollow, which might be its intended nest-site. Following the snipe slowly, as it invited me to, it led me well clear of where it emerged and then it flew up into the air, strong as anything.
Just before the fence line, I saw two marker-posts, and then a third, leading me to a stile topped with barbed wire. I wonder if there is some conflict of interest between waymarking to promote tourism versus farming. It was easier to cross a lower bit of fence, without a stile and with no barbs on the wire. Continuing alongside the fence-line down to the road (917807), I then returned along the road and coast, to my van (3:05 pm; 933816). The weather was so different from when I’d set off – warm air, mostly blue sky, with delicate sweeps of high level feathery clouds; the hills of South Harris bright with pale grey rocks on the hilltops, smooth curves almost white in the sunlight. I sat awhile beside my van, relaxing with a mug of tea and a biscuit.
Wishing to complete the last link in my Western Isles jaunt on the following day, I decided to walk more of the connecting road route south of the causeway. Parking at Port nan Long beach, I walked north to the causeway and back again – in trainers – and then south to Loch an Sticir where the corncrake calls were rather masked by the “peewit-ing” lapwings. As I was taking panoramic photos of the loch with its artificial islands and causeways – dating from 1000 BC – nine geese took off from the near side and then descended on the far side, and the corncrake called again from close by me. Having spied a suitable place to park, overlooking the wee loch (898779), for the morrow, I returned to my van and moved it there.
Slicing Matteson smoked sausage, tomatoes and yellow pepper into a Rogan Josh sauce, served with egg noodles, made a convenient new experience – a meal that might not win any prize, except for speed, but it was satisfying. While I ate, a short-eared owl came along the edge of the loch below me – so light and delicate in its movements, pausing in mid-air – not exactly hovering, because it didn’t seem to need to – just blowing air forward gently with a single wing-beat – wings waved forward horizontally, wing aspect almost vertical – pausing in the air, before delicately moving forward again – more like a butterfly than a bird flight. The deceptive thing with these owls is that they look so much bigger than they really are - most of their visible volume is simply feather.
There followed a mild, still evening – remarkably with no midges – so I sat comfortably in the open air until 9:30 pm. I wished to catch the W16/W17 bus that would leave Berneray Youth Hostel at 7:40 am, changing bus at Trumaisgary (7:55 am) for Clachan at 8:10 am. My bag was packed with lunch, water and over-trousers. With a 28 km trek planned for the day, I would wear my Meindl boots (too tiringly heavy for a road-walk, but gentler against my Achilles tendon than the Brashers) with newish walking socks, wear my cag and make a final decision about down jacket and which hat depending on the morning weather.
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