Berneray

Even nine days worth of breathtaking scenery with an abundance of wildlife doesn't prepare you for the incredible beauty of Berneray. The walk from the car takes you across fields of machair, with frog orchid, early marsh orchid and common twayblade added to our list of orchids for the holiday.

On crossing the sand dunes you are met with an awe inspiring sight, 3 miles of silver sand beach and turquoise seas with the mountains of Harris as a backdrop. We walked the entire western and northern shores of the island until we reached the rocks, then cut inland over the summit of  Beinn Shleibhe. At 93m it may not seem high but from here you can see the St. Kilda archipelago, with Hirta, Boraray, Stac Lee and Stac an Armin all clearly visible to the west, whilst to the east the Cullins of Skye look incredibly close. To further increase the illusion of altitude, alpine bistort and mountain everlasting grow near the summit.

Continuing our walk into the village and harbour, with its selection of traditional black houses, we stopped to admire the common seals with their pups on the rocks at low tide, while a family party of greylag geese swam past on the loch. The Hebridean greylags are truly wild birds, unlike the feral birds we see in England. Berneray truly is the most beautiful and interesting of the Hebridean islands.

Summary of birds seem:
Golden plover 3
Gannet 200
Eider 10
Arctic tern 50
Little tern 50
Lapwing 20
Ringed plover 10
Greylag 30
Raven 10