Wednesday 10th October

This afternoon, Bob had a Goshawk close to his house, up behind Port Charlotte. Earlier on he had seen a juv Golden Eagle up on the North west coast of Islay. Mary had done the goose count at Gruinart today, as James is on his holidays, Mary's tally was 22,771 Barnies, 554 Whitefronts, 2 Pale belied Brent and 4 Canada Geese. Another visitor, John Wilson had a small flock of 10 pale bellied Brent down at Gortan on Loch Indaal, while earlier on this week he had a Greenshank over at Gruinart. Bob Humphreys from Aberdeenshire had a great time today on the Sound of Islay watching 4 Otters over a couple of hours. Bob had also seen several mixed flocks of Tits including some Long tailed Tits. Other birds of note were Golden Eagle, Buzzard and Guillemot. This afternoon while working up in the garden at the cottage at the top of the hill I was almost "zapped" by a Sparrowhawk as it pursued a wee brown bird into the bushes, it happened that quick I never saw the final outcome!!! Steven from Suffolk was also commenting about seeing our resident Starlings. Another topic to mentioned and full marks to the local power company, SSE, after the Whoopers last year striking the overhead power lines, they have had a gang of men over putting in scarers on the cables, I should try and find out how many they have installed.