Apart from the beach at Clachan Sands being beautiful, I wanted to go and see if I could find the Hebridean Marsh-orchid. Now, that may sound simple, but it is the nomenclature of this orchid that makes it hard! To quote from the Wild Guides Britain's Orchids book by Sean Cole and Mike Waller (which is an absolutely superb book and highly recommended):
I quote, 'Hebridean Marsh-orchid Dactylorhiza ebudensis. In 2000, a small population of stocky, richly coloured marsh-orchids on the machair of North Uist (Outer Hebrides) were assigned species rank as Hebridean Marsh-orchid D. ebudensis. However, Bateman (2012) reclassified these orchids as Pugsley's Marsh-orchid D. traunsteinerioides' ssp francis-drucei vaar edudensis.'
The book then goes into further detail, but I'll leave that for now. So armed with said book and various photos of what is apparently the Hebridean Marsh-orchid we headed off into a superb area where there were abundant orchids of many kinds and undoubtedly their hybrids. I found two likely candidates which have since been given the thumbs up as probably Hebridean Marsh-orchids.
..and specimen 2....