A very blustery day of strong westerly winds, bright sunshine between heavy rain showers.
Clive McK. started the day with 2 Great Skuas flying up Loch Indaal and heading overland southwards. Later he and Fiona Morton braved the horrible weather to do a sea-watch at Frenchman's Rocks with moderate results: best of the bunch being 3 each of Storm and Leach's Petrels plus singles of Arctic Tern, Arctic and Great Skuas and Little Gull, but surprisingly few of the usual species such as auks and Manxies, though there were 291 Gannets. Billy Stitchell also noted activity from Gannets in the Sound of Islay between Caol Ila and Inver on Jura with 20+ actively fishing there. Further notes from the sea came in from David W. who saw 3 Leach's Petrels on the ferry from Kennacraig to Port Askaig, though these were all around West Loch Tarbert and Gigha. Again, he commented on the small numbers of the commoner species.
On dry land, I was around Loch Gruinart during the morning, but the stormy weather meant very little of note being observed. However, Ed B. found a Tufted Duck on the loch at Cornabus and David Hunter did particularly well on the far side of the island. He found a Turtle Dove at Ardtalla (photo below) and a Great Crested Grebe in Claggain Bay - both distinctly uncommon here.
Chris Aller had 2 Golden Eagles at Killinallan and Billy Stitchell sent in a photo of one taken at Knocklearach.
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