Sunday 30th December

Thankfully the winds never got up to speeds that the forecasters were predicting although one time through the night there was a noisy hail shower with the hail stones clattering against the window. Dave sent through some sightings from the Oa. Yesterday Dave had a small flock of 30 Fieldfare on the reserve and  2 Whoopers on Kinnabus Loch. He also had a Sparrowhawk flying alongside doing 40 kph into a strong head wind! On Friday Dave had a raptor day, with 2 Golden Eagles, a Merlin, a Sparrowhawk and a Buzzard. This afternoon round at Ballinaby, I had around 400 Greylags together in one group, in another field saw 16 of the Whitefronts with their neck collars on, and then in a third field some Barnacle Geese. Further on, below Carnduncan, there was a mixed flock of Starlings and the odd Fieldfare, in total 30 birds. The weather has not helped the birding over the past few days, no I have not  changed the blog to "Islay weather blog" yet!