Thurs 14th October

This Wheatear was on the dyke just beside the former Kilchoman School this morning on our return from Gruinart. There were also 6 Whooper Swans on Loch Gorm, 6 Collared Doves were perched on the telegraph wires down at Sunderland farm, a few Redwings also at the old Kilchoman School, as well as a Snipe overhead.

Yesterday Louise had been down on the Oa reserve, and had seen a few Brambling mixed in with a flock of Linnet.

Back to today, and Michal had done a Goose count at the back of lunchtime at Gruinart, 5,000 Barnacle Geese were there along with 400 Pale bellied Brents, 40 Greenland Whitefronts and 2 Pink footed Geese. Peter had a count of around 900 Barnacle Geese at the roost at the top of Loch Indaal this evening just as dusk was setting in. At the same time the Greylags were flying off inland to their roosting sites. Peter also had a walk round Loch Ballygrant earlier on and saw a pair of Little Grebe as well as large feeding flocks of mixed Tits, Goldcrests, Thrushes and Treecreepers. Further on, the "Glen road" provided the excellent backdrop for the bellowing of the rutting Red Deer stags. He had also seen a flock of around 150 Golden Plover up there too.

Malcolm had been out along the high water mark of Loch Indaal, from the Foreland turn off along to the Spit, and his dog Merlin had found 6 dead Guillemots and also a dead Herring Gull. All the corpses seemed to be fairly fresh which fits in well with the strong south -easterlies last week. Malcolm also commented that all the Guillemots were adult birds and wondered whether the young were already far enough out to sea.