All of the islands we visited this trip have machair, but it was that on Coll
which I was most impressed with. I've never seen bloody cranesbill as such a
dominant machair species before and there were carpets of it on Coll, a very
impressive sight.
Intermingled with the cranesbill was lady's bedstraw, kidney vetch, red and
white clover and several species of orchid.
Pyramidal was perhaps the most numerous of the orchids, but there were also
Hebridean spotted, northern marsh, Hebridean marsh and lesser butterfly.
Hebridean spotted orchid. This is a subspecies of common spotted orchid, and
to be honest I don't know what differentiates it, other than common spotted
apparently doesn't occur in the Hebrides.
Hebridean marsh orchid. This is classed as a separate species and is a deep
magenta colour rather than the purple colour of the closely related northern
marsh orchid.
Lesser butterfly orchid grows in damper areas.
The beaches on Coll are the more typical sandy brown colour whereas those on
Barra, Vatersay and Tiree tend to be the silver sand associated with the
Hebrides. Perhaps the composition of the sand here explains the abundance of
bloody cranesbill on this particular island.
Looking across to Gunna.
Lobster claw washed up on the beach!
Gunna
There are several glorious beaches in the Crossapol area.
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