St Kilda Trip May 7th

Just getting ready for the trip towards St Kilda leaving on Monday.  Note as in the nautical fashion we don't say "to" but "towards" as its by no means a foregone conclusion we will get to St Kilda - wind and weather are so critical to going there and equally critical to staying for a few days.
Still we shall leave with great expectations!  What else can we hope for:
Wildlife;  Birds: now is a critical time for migrating birds so we will expect to see some interesting birds as they head north to breed in Iceland and Greenland. Pomerine and perhaps long tailed skuas, Brent, white front and other geese, various ducks and perhaps small passerines. The massive gannet colony on Boreray (St Kilda archipelago) is one of the principal attractions of St Kilda.  We may visit the Monachs where the Snowy Owl was well at home last year but also where there are many good birds to be seen - the little tern colony is well established there.  Flowers are not great this early in the season and the superb colorful vistas provided by the machair flowers will not have even started yet.  Kilda has some interesting flora - almost unique mainly because most of the flowers only grow to a very small size (often less than 5 cms) to cope with the high winds there.
Cetacean wise - well we will certainly expect to see lots of harbour porpoise but I don't really count them!!  Many of the Day tripper wildlife cruises offer cetacean watching when porpoise is all there is to be seen - most folk expect whales or at least dolphins!  We will expect to see common dolphins, risso's dolphins to the west of the Uists, and we are usually joined by a group of bottle-nosed dolphins as we pass through the sound of Barra.  Its a good time to see the Orcas at St Kilda, this being a favorite time for them to visit there and we will be confident at seeing minke whales as they migrate back into inshore waters.  Last year we saw a young sperm whale on passage half way between St Kilda and the Western Isles.
We will of course visit other islands on the cruise so expect to see Sea eagles, deer, otters etc but also to have a lot of enjoyment from simply visiting some of the less frequently visited islands as we cruise around.

Sounds good doesn't it?  I'm always very excited at the prospect of the first 12 day cruise but must admit that even after 25 years doing this I still look forward to each and every cruise - they are all so different and of course I meet new guests all the time.