Sunday 16th February

A good day with the weather over here, although I had to go and look for some de-icer to clear the windscreen on the van before I headed out..really had to think where the can was as it is not often needed here!!! This morning I met in with Bob to give him a help with the monthly count from Bowmore down to Gartbreck. The tally was as follows,5 GND, 5 Heron, 9 Shag, 25 Whitefronts, 62 Barnies, 11 Shelduck, 80 Wigeon, 287 Teal, 8 Mallard, 7 Red breasted Merganser, 7 Goldeneye, 4 GBB Gull, 50 Herring Gull, 50 Common Gull, 120 Oystercatcher, 267 Curlew, 2 Barwit, 10 Ringed Plover, 3 Grey Plover, 19 Lapwing, 9 Turnstone and 2 Snipe. Skylarks were heard singing away, a possible sign of Spring round the corner??? This afternoon Margaret and myself went down to the Machir Bay and carried out the "dead beach bird survey", the results not too good as there were a few seen, what we found was as follows, 1 Guillemot, 3 Razorbill, 1 Oystercatcher and 2 Puffin. Thinking back, considering the weather that we have had of late, I suppose it was not really surprising to find as many birds as that. We also saw a juv Golden Eagle up above the dunes behind Machir Bay and a pr of Chough probing about looking for some food. On the beach itself there were 40 Oystercatcher and 15 Ringed Plover plus a good number of folk out for a walk too.