Tuesday 28th October

The weather here for the past few days has not been that great, but today, somebody turned the switch and hey presto a dry day with not much of a wind either! Janeice and Tim Scott who had been over last week had seen their first Redwing of the Autumn last Wednesday at West Tower down at Bridgend. Earlier, on Sunday they saw an Otter swim past the lighthouse at Port Charlotte. On Thursday, over in the woods near Ardtalla they had a flock of Long tailed Tits along with some Goldcrest there too. In the fields around there as well, a flock of Redwings was present. They also commented on the numbers of Whoopers both arriving and departing. Yesterday, Phil had been over on Jura with his clients from Heatherlea. A Golden Eagle was perched on thier way up to Craighouse. Small Isles Bay, an Otter was seen really close at hand, completely unaware of the group watching it! Also there were, Red throated Diver and Great Northern Diver as well as a Black Guillemot. Back on Islay, top bird was a Pinkie amongst the flock of Barnies near to Ballygrant. Back here at home this morning, we had a distant sighting of a White tailed Sea Eagle out from Granny's Rock. Earlier on I was watching the numerous comings and goings of the geese and the Whoopers as well. From the house I counted 26 different groups of them at one pass as I scanned round, just great living up on top of a hill.... I see that in the current edition of "Nature's home", the RSPB magazine that they have an article on Loch Gruinart reserve. This evening at the Bird nerds meeting down at the hide , Dave Woods had spotted a Green winged Teal. We also had pr of Dabchick close to the hide. Ed from WWT is now back over to do his work on the Whitefronts and was able to tell us us all some history about the Whitefronts with neck collars on, out from the hide as well. Bjorn had seen a Greylag the other day with neck collar N18 round its neck, it turns out that Ed and his colleagues had rung it on Tiree back in July. It's a small world sometimes!!!