Wednesday 9th October

With the wind going further into a bluster from the north, today's bird news was mainly about geese arriving in large numbers.

But first, there were reports of a raft of 87 Shags over in the bay at Port Ellen from Steve & Lyn Rogers and the two adult White-tailed Eagles on their little grassy island at the top of Loch Indaal at Bridgend from Gary T.

Apart from confirmation of in the evening of Barnacle Geese and Whooper Swans over the Claddach/Portnahaven area from Mary Redman, all other reports were from the Loch Gruinart area:

Clive Mc. had 9 Whooper Swans on the floods, with 12 there seen by Patrick Styles later. Patrick also noted 8 Pintails and a Brent goose there. Fiona Mc Gillivray did a count of Barnacle Geese  on the Gruinart Flats in the afternoon and estimated 7,058 along with 125 Greenland White-fronted Geese, 25 Whooper Swans and 2 Little Egrets, Clive noted a group of 39 Pink-footed Geese and flocks of Barnies still coming in later, with a count of 7,560.

With a further day of northerly winds tomorrow, we can perhaps expect further large arrivals of geese?