Flora and fauna

Text by Nicolette MacLean, Berneray. Pictures by Noll Christie.

The machair

The machair is a coastal plain made up of windblown shell sand. Traditional crofting practice, which involves summer agriculture using seaweed together with dung from winter grazing animals as natural fertiliser, has, over time, bound together and stabilised the land.

The machair is ploughed in rotation, giving a patchwork of crops and fallow of different ages which supports a wide range of flowers. Berneray has a particularly fine machair, a result of careful husbandry by the island’s crofters, helped by the absence of rabbits.

Flowers

The machair bursts into flower when the stock are taken off at the end of May. As the summer progresses, the colours of the machair change, from the yellows of bird's foot trefoil, buttercups and vetches, to the reds and purples of red clover, field gentians, black knapweed and devil's bit scabious.

Each part of the machair patchwork has a different display of flowers. The early fallow sports corn marigolds, poppies, wild pansies, cranesbill and storksbill. In later months these are replaced by red clover, tufted and kidney vetches, lesser meadow rue, yellow rattle and eyebrights.

In damper patches are marsh marigolds and self heal. In June and July there are fine stands of marsh and Hebridean spotted orchids.

Although there is no peat on Berneray, the more acidic and damp soil on the hills on the east side of the island support a different flora, with bog asphodel, insectivorous sundews and butterwort, and, in drier areas, mountain everlasting.

Birds

The lush vegetation of the machair provides a breeding ground for waders. Birds which are becoming scarcer on mainland Britain, such as skylarks, lapwings and corn buntings can still be seen (and heard) here.

On early summer evenings you can sometimes hear snipe drumming, and even the rasp of a corncrake. Mute swans can be seen on Loch Brusda, and greylag geese are common. In the winter they are joined by barnacle, and a few brent geese.

Ravens and buzzards are often to be seen. Golden eagles and hen harriers are rarer sights, usually in the winter. Wading birds on the shore include redshanks, sanderlings, turnstones, oyster catchers, dunlin, curlews, whimbrels, ringed plovers and herons. Further out, around the shores of Berneray, are mallards, eiders, red-breasted mergansers, and, more rarely, black-throated and great northern divers. Shags and cormorants fish in the seas around Berneray throughout the year, and in summer you can see gannets diving.

Bumblebees

Five species of bumblebee flourish on Berneray. Of particular interest is the great yellow bumblebee, a nationally scarce species which can be found on the machair, usually feeding on red clover or black knapweed. The Hebridean subspecies of heath bee, which feeds on heather on the hills, can also be sighted during the summer months.

Mammals

Common seals often congregate at low tide on the rocks in Bays Loch, and can often be seen from the parking area a little way beyond the Post Office or by taking a boat trip out into the bay. Grey seals, which are larger and can be distinguished by the long 'roman' noses, also haul out there occasionally, but are more common off the West Beach. Though the otters of Berneray are out during the day more often than on the mainland, they are still elusive, and it takes patience and luck to see one.