Wildlife
The coasts, glens and summits of North Harris and Lewis provide an excellent range of habitats for an array of wildlife. It’s a unique place with an open landscape that provides superb opportunities to see many species of flora and fauna.
The island’s’ habitats range from alpine grassland on high mountain slopes to machair (low-lying grassland) close to the sea. The coast offers sandy beaches and deep sea lochs, while inland are burns and freshwater lochs. In the Outer Hebrides both the land and the sea are home to a fascinating range of species.
Wildlife
The coasts, glens and summits of North Harris and Lewis provide an excellent range of habitats for an array of wildlife. It’s a unique place with an open landscape that provides superb opportunities to see many species of flora and fauna.
The island’s’ habitats range from alpine grassland on high mountain slopes to machair (low-lying grassland) close to the sea. The coast offers sandy beaches and deep sea lochs, while inland are burns and freshwater lochs. In the Outer Hebrides both the land and the sea are home to a fascinating range of species.
Birds
During your stay on Harris and Lewis there’s a good chance of seeing some of Scotland’s most exciting bird species, especially golden and sea eagles.
Along the parts of the coast with cliffs, an abundance of cliff-nesting sea-birds can be seen in the breeding season. The best way to achieve this is from a boat on a trip around the islands or to St Kilda. Those who take boat trips will be rewarded with sightings of sandpipers, dippers, cormorants, shag and herons and of course a variety of raptors. Other species to spot include geese on migration, gannets, terns and eider ducks.
Further inland, moorland species include golden plover, greenshank, snipe, stonechat, wheatear and merlin. Dippers can be seen by the rivers, and red and black-throated divers are easiest to find between May and August during their short intensive breeding seasons.
Mammals
Red deer hinds live all over the estates and large transient populations of stags are also seen depending on the time of year and weather. It’s quite common to see red deer while driving around Harris and Lewis. The island’s’ deer are smaller and lighter than their mainland cousins, but represent one of the last pure lines of red deer in the British Isles.
Basking sharks, minke, pilot and sperm whales, orcas, dolphins and porpoises all inhabit the seas around Harris and Lewis, and are seen regularly on sea trips. You may even spot otters in the bays around the islands.
Flora
The Outer Hebrides are famous for the machair, a changing carpet of wildflowers occurring naturally where shell sand is blown over a layer of peat, creating a fertile alkaline habitat. June to August is the ideal time for wildflowers when the machair is showing its best.
You can often find a variety of beautiful orchids interwoven in the machair, sometimes en masse. The islands have around seven different species of orchid, some of which you’ll readily see throughout the spring and summer months, and others you’ll see only rarely. Some orchid subspecies are unique to the Outer Hebrides.
Further inland, the bogs provide a home to carnivorous plants such as sundew and butterwort, while the wet climate of the higher hills provides ideal conditions for several rare moss species.
The wide variety of flora attracts beautiful butterflies and other insects such as dragonflies.