The changing seasons bring very different birds to the machair and west coast lochs. In autumn the arrival of the Barnacle Geese from their breeding grounds in Greenland and flocks of Golden Plovers from Iceland make spectacular sights. However, in spring and early summer the calls and songs of ground-nesting birds including waders and countless Skylarks contribute much to the character of the land.

Since the 1970s, when I first realised just how special Uist is for its birdlife, I have been fascinated by the thousands of waders that breed on the low land along the west coast. Six species are typical. Oystercatcher and Lapwing are the most widespread. Dunlin, Redshank and Snipe are found mainly in wet marshes and grassland. Ringed Plovers live in drier places including cultivated machair and shingle. Red-necked Phalaropes were once typical waders of the machair lochs but are now rare. All this breeding activity is concentrated into a few weeks. Once the chicks can fly, virtually all the birds leave the breeding areas. By the end of June, the machair and blackland are almost silent in contrast to just four weeks previously.

Uist is one of the most exciting places in Britain for breeding waders. The densities occurring on parts of the machair are the highest in the country. A unique and complicated mixture of wet and dry habitats, largely created by the activity of people over hundreds of years, provides amazing conditions for nesting and rearing chicks. Importantly, several mammals that are serious predators of waders on the mainland, notably foxes, stoats and badgers, are absent, though introduced hedgehogs remain a problem in Benbecula and South Uist. Feral ferrets, possibly increasing as a result of high rabbit numbers, may also eat many wader chicks.

Periodic surveys of breeding waders by teams of ornithologists have covered much of the machair from the Sound of Harris to Barra. The first survey on this scale was in 1983 and the most recent in 2022. The islands were estimated to hold a quarter of all Ringed Plovers nesting in Britain and a third of the Dunlin in 1983. Since then, their numbers have dropped by more than 70 percent for reasons not fully understood. Although Lapwing and Oystercatcher have remained the most abundant waders over the last 40 years, numbers of Lapwings are now lower, whereas those of Oystercatcher are higher. Redshank have shown little change, unlike many other parts of Britain where they are disappearing as breeding birds. Similarly, breeding Curlews are under great pressure on mainland Britain, yet they are increasing in Uist. As far as I’m aware, Curlews only colonised the islands as breeding birds in recent decades and are found mainly at the moorland edge. These are the broad patterns of change. There is considerable variation from one part of Uist to another.

Since the late 1970s I have studied breeding waders on Baleshare where the trends in numbers have broadly mirrored those elsewhere on the islands. Throughout this time the highest densities of waders have been found on damp machair pastures, freshwater marshes within the machair, and saltmarshes. Until about 20 years ago the cultivated machair held large numbers of Ringed Plovers but these are now mainly confined to areas closer to the shoreline. This loss of birds on cultivated machair appears to be widespread in Uist. Another change has been the mysterious disappearance of Lapwings and Redshank from much of Baleshare’s blackland despite the continued presence of large areas of apparently suitable wet habitat.

Overall numbers of breeding waders are now about 25 percent lower than 40 years ago, yet Uist remains outstandingly important for its breeding waders at a time when these birds are declining throughout much of their global range due to changes in land use, predation pressures and changing climate. Continued change is inevitable, but hopefully the unique and wonderful Uist environment will continue to hold thriving populations of breeding waders for many decades to come.
Hebridean Naturalist is supplied each month by Curracag and Outer Hebrides Biological Recording.