Sat 4th Oct

This afternoon the weather has calmed down a bit, and a settled sky showed itself off, not a cloud to be seen over here!

James has been busy counting the Geese, this morning at 10.30am, there were only 2425 Barnacle Geese and 32 Whitefronts, but by 5.30 this afternoon it was a different story. The figures had shot up to 26,625 Barnies, 205 Whitefronts, 8 Pinkfoots, 21 Pale bellied Brent, 2 Canada, hutchinsii sp, 1 Barn Owl, 1 Greenland Wheatear and 32 Pied Wagtail all in one flock. All these birds were on the reserve at Loch Gruinart and James reckons that there were at least another 8,000 Geese at Craigens. I queried James on his geese figures and he assured me that he counts in 5s, so who am I to doubt his figures? JRH

James also said that these figures were a record for the reserve. The vast majority of the birds that came in were coming up from the South, similar to yesterday, and certainly here at home, there were a lot flying up the West coast of Islay. George also had seen a lot of the Geese flying up Loch Indaal. So can we presume that all these birds had overshot Islay with the strong winds of late? James said that there were some birds flying in from the North, from the Colonsay direction. Malcolm e mailed to say there had been a record back in the 60s of a Greenland rung bird being recovered in the Azores.

George also had a Red throated Diver in Loch Indaal off Bruichladdich., and Macolm had a couple of Swallows again in Bruichladdich. GJ MAO