Monday 19th may

A bit of a late entry I know, but when I normally write the "post" this evening we were in the middle of a spectacular thunder and and lightening storm along with some torrential rain, so here goes.... The Bowland birders yesterday seen 2 Barwits along with a Whooper from the viewing platform at Gruinart, along at Blackrock they saw 2 Little Terns and 3 Arctic Terns,and from Bridgend they walked round the Claggain strip where they had Willow Warbler, 2 Mistle Thrush, 2 pr of Bullfinches, heard Chiffchaff, Great Tit,Blue Tit, Treecreeper and Buzzard all seen. Peter Donaldson yesterday had seen 2 Cuckoos being chased by 2 Meadow Pipits down at Easter Ellister, one of the Cuckoos made of, leaving the other to face the music... this continued for around 10 - 15 minutes with the said Cuckoo getting moved along a fence line from one stob to the next one along a length of around 100 metres before going onto the telegraph wire! Ken and Sal yesterday had 78 different species yesterday alone, a great start to their visit, their highlights included seeing good numbers of Greenland Wheatears at Ballinaby and also up at Sanaigmore, as well as the Northern Wheatears all through their day, also at Sanaigmore they heard 2 Corncrakes calling. On the way up to Killinallan they saw 6 Whimbrel and also a Little Tern feeding, they also saw 4 GND there, as well as 3 in the bay at Sanaigmore. Down from Port Wemyss they reported a steady stream of Gannets fly past in groups of 10- 20, lots of Razorbills, lots of Guillemots, 2 Puffins, over 10 Kittiwakes and a few Fulmars. Today Bob had come up and counted the mixed flock of Ringed Plover/ Dunlin that we had seen yesterday evening, Bob counted 300 Ringed Plover and 50 Dunlin, we checked before the "storm" this evening and they had all moved on...Bob also was telling me of seeing 2 prs of Stonechats out with their new broods up beside his house, great! Dave had an Osprey down at Kilnaughton Bay today, back on the reserve on the Oa, he had the Iceland Gull present and also saw a Spotted Flycatcher while Mark had a Bullfinch there as well.