Monday 9th October

A bit of calm between the storms and rain bought about a very good day's birding, with lots of people out and enjoying the weather and the birds.

Visitor Neil Bews sent in notes from Port Wemyss where he saw 9 Chough and a flock of 40 Redwing over Portnahaven. Later, up at Loch Indaal he noted quite a rarity: a single Taiga Bean Goose, with a small number of Pink-footed Geese towards Bridgend. In the afternoon he found a Merlín between Saligo Bay and Machair Bay and a group of 68 Whooper Swans near Coull Farm.

I was out all day with another couple of visiting birders, starting with a look at the various viewpoints on Loch Indaal from Port Charlotte right up to Gartnatra. The sea was flat and birds were dotted all across the bay - many Guillemots and Razorbills,  40 Red-breasted Mergansers, 50 Eiders, 30+ Red-throated Divers, 2-3 Great Northern Divers, 40 Common Scoter, 16 Mute and 10 Whooper Swans, 6 Slavonian Grebes, 3 "small" Canada Geese - races unknown, 15 Brent and c.10 Pink-footed Geese. The usual couple of White-tailed Eagles were in residence and noted by Sam Turnbull and ourselves, presumably delighted to see the first large numbers of Barnacle Geese arriving in small groups throughout the morning.

We continued to Gruinart by late morning and spent the rest of the day there. Several other folks were watching the area - Mary-Ann Featherstone and friends, plus the RSPB staff, all mesmerised by the massive arrival of Barnacle Geese today - surely a much bigger single, initial arrival than usual? The flats were covered in them and the noise and sight of them occasionally rising into the air to shift location or in response to White-tailed Eagles passing by was a splendid sight. I was delighted that James How and his RSPB team saved me the effort of counting them - a wonderfully precise 18,222 !!!

Other goodies in the Gruinart area included 4-5 Hen Harriers, single female Marsh Harrier, a total of 5 Little Egrets, 14 Black-tailed Godwits, the big Golden Plover flock in gorgeous light and swirling about in murmurations. Greenland White-fronted Geese began arriving too - 97 counted by the RSPB along with 7 Brent, 8 Pink-footed and 64 Whoopers - possibly different to the 40 we'd seen earlier and the 21 seen by James in the morning. James also saw 3 Canada Geese, reckoning two to be Todd's which are small races of Canada Goose and 1 hutchinsii type, aka. Cackling Goose.

Redwings were also on the radar, with the first arrivals of small flocks today - Margaret Brooke seeing them up at Kilchoman and David Dinsley noting birds coming in at The Oa (plus a Fieldfare and a Long-tailed Tit on the cliff-tops) this morning. Mary-Ann Featherstone saw a further Redwings 35 at the hides, while Gary Turnbull was seeing groups, plus more geese moving through on Jura before finding the first 4 Scaup of the autumn at Blackrock.

Geese and Whooper Swans were being seen passing through in groups all over the island - Mary Redman noted them at Portnahaven and Margaret Brooke up at Kilchoman, with Whoopers coming down onto the Barley fields there.

Over at Cornabus, Ed Burrell briefly saw a White-winged gull - probably Glaucous. This evening David Dinsley reports 3 Jack Snipe and 2 Barn Owls at Kinnabus.

HOWEVER: All this excitement may be second to a sighting of a "grey shrike" seen by Annie Rudd up at Smaull this afternoon. Great Grey is a darned good find and rarity on Islay, but this one had the looks of a Lesser Grey Shrike about it, which would be a first for Islay. The weather looks awful for tomorrow, but no doubt some folks will want to go up and try and relocate it to see more.