The weather forecasts suggested that the relatively pleasant and dry conditions would vanish after the music course finished but in fact Sunday dawned in a most acceptable manner and improved as the day went on.  I had booked to go whale watching but they hadn't got enough customers to make it worthwhile so I had to do something else.

I chose another boat trip and set off in a minibus for Ulva Ferry from where the boat to Staffa and the Treshnish Islands sails.  It's not a very long journey but was sufficiently choppy to make you feel you'd ventured quite far into the Atlantic.

Staffa with Fingal's Cave on the right

On top of the island - very flat

After a wander around we moved off to head for the Treshnish Islands to look for Atlantic Grey Seals and more particularly seal pups who should be appearing at this time of year.

Boat coming to collect us from Staffa for next stage

En route we saw lots of shags like the group below.

Bird Rock

There are a lot of little rocky lumps making up the Treshnish Islands and we pottered in and out of them in search of the elusive pups until the boatman declared that here was one.  As is usual with my wildlife pics the creature is not much more than a dot.

In this case it's the light brown slug to the right of the gull at the left hand side of the picture.  According to the boatman it was only a few hours old given its size and the fact that the gull and one of its chums were pecking at a bloody snack that he reckoned was the afterbirth.

Treshnish Seals

Tasty snack

The following day I went on a landbased wildlife hunt and the first thing we saw was more seals, but these were a different sort - common seals. The way to tell the difference between Atlantic and Common is said to be that one has the face of a dog and the other of a cat. Which is which? Search me

More seals

 Apart from those seals I saw otters, red deer, dolphins, golden eagles, two other sorts of eagle and lots of different birds but I have no pictures because mostly I was looking through binoculars or telescopes.  Just as well because otherwise I'd have seen nothing.

But I did see lots of scenery with the naked eye and took some pictures of it.