Sunday 26th August

Yesterday, Michal had a count of 11 Mistle Thrushes and also a Buzzard down at Foreland. Michal saw another Buzzard later on over towards Finlaggan. The "bird nerds" met up this afternoon over at Gruinart led by Michal as James is off colour. Bob, George, David Formby our local dentist, myself plus Allan and Fiona from Edinburgh and also Alan and Jane from Southampton made the group up. Michal took us out past the sea wall on Loch Gruinart which allowed us to see more of the birds on Loch Gruinart itself, sorry Tom nobody did an actual count! The highlight was the sighting of 2 Ospreys, one was in the air for quite some time while the other bird was content to be sitting on one of the sand bars. We were down there for the best part of 2 hours and the Osprey on the ground was there all the time! On another sand bar there was a Peregrine, while overhead we had a couple of Buzzards calling away. There were plenty of Curlews out towards the mouth of Loch Gruinart along with some Oystercatchers there too. Close to where we were positioned were a few Ringed Plover. There were some Knot, Sanderling and Dunlin on the wing as another Peregrine flew up the loch. Redshank, and a few Godwits were also noted too. Coming back home there were a few Stonechats along the bushes on the roadside round Loch Gorm and later on when I was up looking the sheep on the crag around 25- 30 Rock Doves flew off in different directions.