Return to Skye: Part two.

The following day we went back over to the mainland. Our first stop was a visit to Attadale Gardens at Strathcarron. A really beautiful place with such a variation in gardens. It was here that we had two first time sightings. The first was of something I had never even heard of before. In the small tea room was a newspaer clipping on the wall about a rare Bee called the Northern Colletes Bee. It said in the piece that there was only a small handful of colonys in the whole of the UK. And lo and behold, there was a colony right outside the tea room in the cobblstones! The Bee's were not in the slightest way bothered by me as I quietly knelt there taking pictures, and I was able to get some lovely close shots.

The second first time sighting was of something I had been hoping to see on this trip. It was a Scotch Argus Butterfly, and a real specimen too. It was a lovely deep choclaty brown almost bordering on black, and with a careful bit of stalking, I was able to kneel right next to it to get a few shots. Brilliant! It was after we left Attadale though, that we were to get our biggest surprise, and one that will be in my memory forever.

We were on our way to a place called Plockton. The road we were on was very narrow with a steep hillside on our left covered in thick Rhododendron and pine, and a steep drop off on our right that went down to the waters edge which was also covered in Rhododendron bushes. As we came slowly around a bend in the road, there in front of us, about forty metres away, was what I at first thought was a Cat with its back to us and looking away from us. I was just making a joke about "look, there's a Scottish Wild Cat" when it turned to face us. The cream chest was a bit of a give away that it was certainly not a Cat of any description. It was a Pine Marten! And judging by its size, it must have been a male because it was very big. I have always wanted to see a Pine Marten, but this was a truly amazing and totally unexpected sighting.

The only time I have seen them before, they have been ones that have been run over. Two in Scotland, and a very rare one in Wales. To have this one standing there in front of us, and in broad daylight, was a sight never to be forgotten. And as suddenly as we had happened upon it, so it slipped off the road and vanished. I did grab the camera and have a look over the side of the road, but it was so thick there was not a sight or sound of it. Unforgetable and amazing!

We spent the rest of the after-noon at Plockton which was a beautiful place. I could have certainly thought of worse places to spend a lovely sunny after-noon! Then, as if we had not seen enough already, back on Skye we stopped and watched another White Tailed Sea Eagle soaring around just by The Cuillins! The next day though was to be another day of truly amazing sightings and scenery!

We had decided to take a non-landing ferry trip out to two of the other islands. So we were up early the next moring to get down to Armadale to catch the ferry. The weather was pleasant when we left the cottage up on the north end of Skye, but as we got to The Cuillin Mountains, we came through torrential rain and we wondered what sort of day we were going to have. However, as we got down towards Armadale, the rain stopped. It was still quite grey and cloudy, but it was settled. As we drove alongside the coastal road towards Armadale pier, something caught my eye out in the water. Then as I looked, I saw it agiain. It was the dorsal fin of a Bottle Nosed Dolphin!

We quickly pulled into a rather conveniently placed parking spot and got out to see if we could see it again. We didn't. Instead we see about thirty or forty! Wherever you looked, there were Dolphins breaking the surface and blowing. One even leapt clean out of the water! They must have been just moving with the tide and we happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was such an awe inspiring sight to see and hear them as they moved up the coast. Some were two hundred metres or more away and some were only about seventy metres away. That was not the last of the Dolphins we were to see though.

Once we had got our tickets for the ferry, we were hanging about just outside the office when the ferry came in and we heard somone say something about Dolphins at the end of the pier. We walked down to the end thinking that they could see some of the ones we had seen. It wasn't those Dolphins though, it was another school that had followed the ferry in and were now just off the pier about twenty five metres out! There was about fifteen or so of them, and they kept swimming around right in front of us. In amongst them there were several young calves and I got some really pleasing pictures of them as they broke the surface. It was a real spectacle and again, one you just would not ever forget!

And so onto the ferry. We sailed across to the mainland at Mallaig, and then changed ferry to go across to the islands of Eigg and Muck. I was really hoping we may see some more Dolphins or maybe a Basking Shark or a Whale, but the weather stayed cloudy with odd rain showers all day long, and there was just enough ripple on the surface to make spotting any Cetaceans very hard. They were not the only things to look out for though. Obviously there were plenty of sea birds about and I had two more first sightings. The first were Manx Shearwaters. There were hundreds out on the sea, just floating in huge rafts waiting for the cover of darkness to go back to their underground nest burrows on the islands.  This way, they are safe from aerial predators such as Great Black-Backed Gulls.

Our first port of call was at Eigg. Just at the entrance to the harbour was a colony of Arctic Terns. This was the first time I think I have ever seen Arctic Terns. From there we then went to the island of Muck, where again at the entrance to the harbour, were several Grey Seals. Also at both islands were a handful of Eider Duck. All were females with the odd youngster. On the way back to Mallaig, I managed to get odd shots of Gannets and a Great Skua too.

In fact, during the course of our holiday, I ended up seeing several Great Skuas, and one day saw one put a Gannet into the water in an atempt to steal its catch. We were now coming to the final days of our holiday, but there was still time to have one or two more memorable sightings.......