Continuing our walk along the peninsular north of Solas, we stopped at some well preserved wheel houses before heading back through more machair fields to the coast and beach...
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| The tombolo. |
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| A tombolo is a depositional landform that connects an island to land, or another island. |
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| The wheel house. |
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| Another Moss Carder. |
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| More Primroses... |
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| ...and more flowers! |
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| The sun made a brief appearance ..... |
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| Giving those colours... |
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| Then we got damp! |
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| And the cloud cleared. |
With a 'reasonable' forecast we headed out to Traigh Iar and Traigh Ear, the peninsular just north of Solas. A nice round walk with spectacular machair flowers ...and we almost stayed dry!
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| The walk begins by at the back of Traigh Ear where there is a small carpark. |
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| It then heads to the dunes...with the usual abandoned vehicles and implements. |
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| The Primroses were spectacular - up above; a White-tailed Sea Eagle. |
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| A Moss Carder Bee disappearing down its hole. |
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| Painted Lady. |
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| Some colourful Bird's-foot Trefoil. |
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| Fields of flowers... |
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| Primroses on the uncultivated grassland adjacent to the field of Mountain Pansies, Stork's-bill sp and Daisies ...in amongst stubble. |
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| Also in the field...Rue-leaved Saxifrage. |
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| Garden Tiger Moth caterpillar. |
After a wet day, the sun came out ....a pleasant walk along Traigh nam Faoghailean and some Hebridean colours.
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| Machair colours. Daisies and a Stork's-bill sp. |
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| Daisies and Mountain Pansies. |
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| Painted Lady. |
Unbeknown to us, it was the Benbecula half marathon today, so a busy road and no parking but we found a spot up the track to the beach. As soon as we got to the beach at Shell Bay it began to rain, so heads down and the traditional Cowrie hunt - of which there were many. On through the dunes, then back through Griminis and back to the car.
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| Boggy, with orchids that I couldn't get too close to as it was a tad damp under foot. |
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| Northern Marsh Orchid. |
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| Early Marsh Orchid. |
Our first full day and a damp one. Our first walk was from our campsite at Balranald. Not many photos as it was damp and windy...interestingly we are too early, this year, for the orchids - it looks like quite a late year with Marsh Marigolds and Cuckoo Flower being in full flower.
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| Plenty of birds on the washed up seaweed. |
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| Turnstones and Ringed Plover. |
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| The Thrift is just coming onto flower. |
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| Sheltering and sleeping - Great Northern Diver. |
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| Some nice folding. |
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| An incredibly cosy looking Raven's nest. |
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| Fields of Mountain Pansies and Daisies. |
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| Closer in ... |
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| Despite the weather the sea still has a tinge of turquoise. |
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| A quick look in the Iron Age midden...where we found a few pieces of pottery... |
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| Before a hasty retreat as the rain approached. |
