The road home

It is almost 9pm as we leave the Lobster Pot after dinner and a chat with the owner. The mist that has lain over Berneray since we arrived this morning has cleared as promised, and it is a beautiful evening. The single track road stretches round two bays and the harbour towards our B&B a mile away. The low sun is lighting the hills on Harris as well as distant skerries and larger land masses we can't identify, and the air is full of the chatter of improbably large gangs of starlings weighing down the telephone wires as they settle on them for an evening gossip.

Other than birdsong, there is no sound - no wind, no waves, no car engines. It could be the silence of centuries past... but where did starlings perch then?

Oh - we saw a barn owl hunting mice in the field outside as we ate our chili. What a place!