Saturday 21st June

Another glorious day, here's hoping that it will last for the next fortnight at least! Yesterday was David and Jenny's last day of their stay here on Islay. Over at Bunnahabhain, they had seen a male Hen Harrier. In the afternoon, they took a walk up to Loch Cam, where they saw a few pairs of Common Gulls with young, Oystercatcher with young, along with plenty of Wheatears, Stonechats, Meadow Pipits and Common Sandpipers too. They also saw a great variety of wild flowers on their walk. Alex Kidd from Fife has been over for the past week as well and had seen 87 species, highlight was counting 24 Chough down at Machir Bay on Tuesday and another morning seeing a corncrake at the reserve at Gruinart, well worth the 5.30 am rise... This morning, we had 3 young Chough out from their nest and sitting on the roof of our new house, so I am saying they are house birds rather than garden birds....Last night we had a Kestrel zip past over the garden when we were there. The local bird nerds are holding their monthly get together at 7.30pm on Tuesday evening. We are meeting in the car park at the Primary school in Bowmore for a short walk along the lane past the sports field along the "Moss road" and down on to the shore and return back up past "The Battery", so if you are over come along and put a face to the names that you read about on the blog...