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Thursday I got up a bit early, because the weather forecast indicated heavy
rains and wind in the afternoon, and I wanted to take one last day to spend
some time outside. I decided to try for a walk on Uig Sands one more time,
knowing I might get soaked, but figuring I could come straight home if I did.
The day was that hazy, bright overcast sort of day, where the backlighting
is not ideal for taking photos of anything, and you end up squinting to see,
but nothing feels very colourful. Despite this, Uig Sands was beautiful.
It's a huge expanse of sandy beach, with water entering in several places.
There is a river that flows down the beach on one side. There are little
"islands" of land that stick up above the beach, and are probably truly
islands at the highest tides. There is an ancient Dun on one of these
islands, which I climbed up to and visited, viewing the Harris mountains
from behind the dun.
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| I decided to just circumnavigate the sandy beach of this area. The tide was not near it's lowest point, but also not high tide, so there was quite a bit of sand to walk, but not nearly the expanse you would have at low tide. (This is truly an enormous beach.) It was raining on and off during my walk, and getting me totally soaking wet, but the winds were low, and it was not too uncomfortable. The birdlife was great fun to watch -- from seagulls of varying types to oystercatchers, there were birds hidden in all sorts of nooks and crannies along the way. At one point I saw a large flock of black-backed gulls flying with some kittiwakes and a few other gulls I couldn't identify. Beautiful! |
After walking here for about an hour, I headed back to the car. It was upon sitting down in the car that I realized how wet I was, as I was soaked completely through.
| From here I drove to the local convenience store to pick up bread, my last food shopping for this trip. As I left the store, it was getting a bit brighter and more colourful, so I decided to head down the side road that loops through the town of Uig for a last look over the sands. I'm really glad I did! As I headed up the hill, looking over the gorgeous view of the beach, I suddenly caught sight of a bird flying overhead. It was a lapwing. I stopped the car right there in the middle of the road and ran after it, trying to snap its picture. It led me to a whole flock of them -- at least 20 lapwings, all settled into a field right in front of the sands. I took loads of photos. I didn't want to get too close to scare them, plus I couldn't get very far from the car, but I was able to get some photos that clearly show what they are. I also got photos of Golden Plovers, a first sighting for me, I believe! |
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I reluctantly went back to the car and turned around to come back by and try
for some closer photos, but the whole flock had flown away by the time I got
back around. I was so thrilled to have gotten that fairly-long and
fairly-close look at one of my favourite birds.
This is the end of the individual reports. If you want to return to part six, click here