Mon 11th Feb

It has been a busy day on the Islay birds front, busy for everyone else apart from me, so here goes!

Tracey and Margaret forwarded me last weeks Goose counts, which tallied up to give 41,516 Barnacle Geese and 4,551 Greenland Whitefronts. It will be interesting to see the figures that they give me next week, as this week is the International Count, so we will wait and see, plus the weather forecast over the next couple of days looks promising. Thanks for the stats to Tracey and the team.

Over at RSPB Loch Gruinart, 2 separate counts were done this afternoon. Firstly, on the floods and along the flats gave the following tally. 1168 Teal, 220 Wigeon, 66 Mallard, 47 Shoveler, 54 Pintail (a good count for Gruinart), 8 Mute Swan, 578 Lapwing, 2 Little Grebe, 90 Curlew, 2 Moorhen, 13 Snipe, 7 Whooper Swan, 7 Black headed Gull, 20 Common Gull, 27 Greylag Geese, 1 Redshank, 2 Heron and a female Otter with 2 well grown Cubs possibly summer born cubs.

The other count was done out on the Estuary, 158 Common Gulls, 184 Oystercatcher, 124 Curlew, 316 Dunlin, 35 Shag, 147 Herring Gull, 11 Redshank, 10 Red-breasted Merganser, 234 Bar tailed Godwit (another high count for Gruinart), 161 Wigeon, 1 Cormorant, 1 Heron, 5 Greater black backed Gulls, 1 Great northern Diver, 3 Turnstone, 9 Mallard, 80 Ringed Plover,

7 Black Headed Gulls, 3 Purple Sandpipers, 1 Greenshank and 106 Shelduck. JRH, CF et al

The Bar headed Goose was seen over at Port Ellen, by folk out on their horses with the youngsters in the group thinking that the Goose looked "cool" with its stripes!