Apologies for the long gap between posts, but rather than posting "nothing much if anything to report" each day, I thought I'd wait till something happened. But nothing has! However, I think the silence has gone on long enough and I didn't want our "vast numbers of avid readers" to think that the blog had completely gone away.
Weather these past 5 days?: well a few lovely days of sunshine and warmth with a few periods of cloud and rain - even periods of strong winds at time - so typical of an Islay summer.
Birds these past 5 days?: just two reports of passing Hen Harriers and a Red-throated Diver in Small Isles Bay on Jura.
The most interesting bit of bird news is very belated and relates to midsummer's day. I include it here as a request to you all not to overlook records that you think might not be important - especially breeding records. One reliable observer whom I'll not "name and shame", mentioned in passing this week that they had climbed up and around Beinn Bheigier (our highest spot on Islay) on the summer solstice and had several Golden Plovers (3-4 pairs?) doing classic "distraction display" antics as some plover species do to try and coax you away from their nests or chicks. This is considered proof of breeding by BTO Breeding Atlas standards and is thus the first apparently definitely confirmed breeding of Golden Plovers on Islay that I can find since 1993. There have been other records since, hinting at breeding and no doubt a few breed every year, but there has been no definite proof recorded for 31 years! The moral of the story is - however insignificant you may think your sightings (especially breeding records) may be, they may not be. So PLEASE submit your sightings as they will all go into the Argyll Bird Club database and may prove valuable, interesting statistics in the future, if not now.
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