Thursday 1st November

A distant image of the blue phased Snow Goose that was briefly on the flats at Gruinart this morning, also in the frame is a Canada Goose hutchinsii sp as well as 2 Barnies in the foreground, good one Steve!! Yesterday along the road, Tom, one of Steve's colleagues who has been over for a few days, had a Yellow browed Warbler at Erasaid, and this afternoon at Port Askaig while waiting on the ferry, he had 8 Waxwings. This morning, Bob had been down doing a sea watch at Frenchman's Rocks where he met in with another visiting birder, Julie from Durham. Their birds seen were as follows, 4 Purple Sandpipers, 3 Turnstone, 4 RTD , 3 GND,  2 groups of Whoopers (12 and another 8), 2 groups of Pale bellied Brent Geese (22 and 2), 17 Barnies, 2 Bonxies, a steady passage of Kittiwakes, around 15 every 10  minutes mostly heading South. Bob also had 6 Fieldfare at the roadside at Gearach, and a flock of around 500 Barnies roosting up on the rough ground towards Claddach. The rainfall figure for October was 6.5" an inch drier than last October, so we are still drier than last year at the same time.... mind you  the Paps of Jura had a white cap well down today eith the far hills behind Port Ellen also wearing a lighter version, more a dusting!!