Boreray and Friends.

Having walked back from The Cambir this morning and been greeted by our chef with bowls of steaming porage laced with honey and whisky, we were taken on a boat trip around the archipelago. It’s part of the package and the weather was superb; perhaps there is a god after all. However, the Atlantic is an ocean and the trade winds have several thousand miles to build up a swell, even in the calmest weather. Before we left, I was asked if we would need a tripod - well, one would have been useful for this panorama of Boreray and its attendant stacs. That on the right is an Armin while the two small ones in the middle appear to have no names (although I’m sure the St Kildans knew them) and the largish one behind is Lee. If you look closely, you may be able to see some of the Boreray black faced sheep gambolling in the sunshine; they are the world’s rarest breed of sheep and distinct from the Soay sheep of Hirta and Soay. The land in the distance visible through the gaps is Hirta itself.
 
These few islands and stacs surrounding Hirta apparently have a population of gannets greater than our local Bass Rock. The skuas demonstrated their vicious nature by attacking the gannets returning from fishing trips: first one would grab a wingtip, which was sufficient to drag the victim down into the water where it would be mobbed by half a dozen more skuas until it regurgitated its catch. I saw several of the gannets turn around and head back out to sea, either being left in peace because the skuas thought it was leaving rather than returning or because they couldn’t be bothered to give chase. Whether the gannets were intelligent enough to deliberately use this strategy or were running scared is difficult to say, but they are not known for their intelligence – unlike the skuas. Unfortunately, I was never in the right position to Blip any of this behaviour; but the pictures are there in my head. It’s a pity I can’t show them.
Under different circumstances, the skuas would be quite capable of killing and eating a gannet.