Mon 13th Oct

This is the Canada goose that was down the other day amongst the Barnies at Sunderland Farm.

Our Cheshire birders have been spotting the birds again today for us. They had 3 separate groups of Whooper Swans, a small group of 3 at Rockside and later on, 9 and then a further 19 flew in while they were at Gruinart. Also there were 66 Brent Geese and 45 Golden Plover. Down on Loch Indaal, they had a small group of Common Scoter off Bruichladdich, also there were the 2 Common Tern. They also commented on seeing a few Swallows, 1 at Gruinart and 5 at Loch Indaal. Round at Ballinaby they had their first Reed Bunting while being here this year, it was amongst some Linnet and Twite. Thanks again for that.

We were down briefly at Bowmore this morning, an interesting sight was a Mute Swan seeing off a Whooper Swan, probably trying to defend her cygnet. There was around 180 Scaup offshore from the Generating Station and some small groups of Brent on the shoreline including some at the point at Gartmain, and another group below the Gaelic College. Further round on the mud flats where the River Sorn enters Loch Indaal, we had a tremendous sighting of the Geese resting up and more Geese were coming in while we were there. Possibly the Geese had been feeding in the moonlight last night and hence the reason why they were there through the day.