Island 460 - Lingeigh 2, North Uist

This was the second tidal island called Lingeigh that I had visited in the space of a couple of hours off the north coast of North Uist. This Lingeigh is much bigger than its neighbour to the south west.  It is roughly round in shape and about 800 metres in diameter.  It rises to a height of 33 metres above sea level.  It is a mile and half walk from the nearest car park at the cemetery at Hornais. 

The day I visited was a spring tide and it was low tide by the time I reached the island.  The strip of beach that joins Lingeigh to North Uist is only about 200 metres wide at its narrowest point and it doesn't dry out completely: there are some shallow channels of water and some areas of shallow standing water a few centimetres deep to cross. 

Lingeigh is covered in grass, which was ungrazed and therefore quite long.  Cotton grass, buttercups, cuckoo flowers, tormentil, bird's foot trefoil, white clover and silverweed were in flower when I visited.  There was a tern colony on an area of shingle beach about 200 metres to the north east of where I climbed onto the island.  I didn't disturb them.

I experienced an "it's a small world" moment on my return to my car after visiting Lingeigh: I was just taking my walking boots off when a car drew up alongside mine, the windows were opened and two people I recognised said hello.  They were a couple, who are birdwatchers, and who I had met in June 2017 while staying at the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle.

Approaching Lingeigh

 

Looking south west from Lingeigh towards North Uist

 

Looking north east up the south coast of Lingeigh

 

Not sure of the original purpose of this enclosure

 

Looking south east from Lingeigh to North Uist

 

North Uist from Lingeigh

 

Looking south from Lingeigh

 

 

Tern colony on a shingle beach

 

Farewell to Lingeigh

 

Lingeigh from Hornais