Coll and Tiree

Summer holidays? OK so we have had a great holiday on the Hebridean island of Coll, with a visit to Tiree thrown in, but I'm not sure about whether I can call it a summer holiday because the weather throughout the UK does not seem to realise that it is July!!

Beautiful scenery and some of the best beaches in the UK, we saw basking sharks, heard Corncrakes, had regular visits from a male Hen Harrier, saw Red Throated divers with their chicks and practised 'strolling' and kite flying!

Fantastic beaches 

Coll has some of the rarest Bumblebees in Britain- the Great Yellow Bumblebee is found here and although we didn't spot it we did see the Moss Carder Bumblebee on the machair. In Coll the RSPB manage areas of the machair for the Corncrake population and as the bees are found in similar areas it could be supposed that the management techniques are beneficial to both.

Moss Carder Bumblebee working the white clover