A miserable morning here on Islay with a lot of rain and strong wind turned eventually into a beautiful afternoon and later into an amazing evening. Midges are loving it! During the trip between the reserves this afternoon, towing a heavy flail mower behind a quadbike going barely 15mph, gave me a good opportunity to have a nice close look on a female hen harrier hunting along the road next to Loch Gorm. Just past Ballinaby there was a flock of 50 herring gulls drying their feathers after all that rain and mixed flock of about 80 linnets and twite feeding feeding along the road. James saw a couple of whitethroats along his track, commenting that it had been good few weeks since he saw any on the reserve. The picture below does not show a bird as you would expect for a bird blog but proves the seriousness of the midge situation mentioned above. This is how my windowsill looked like after about an hour when I opened my window. All alive and ready to bite. You can try to count them!
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