Sunday 12th October

Another great day with the weather again, if you do not believe me look at our new link to Islay wildscapes where you can see some of the tremendous images that Teresa has taken while she is here. Yesterday Dave had a Slavonian grebe on Loch Kinnabus, it had been there on Friday too. Also yesterday, Dave had seen 3 Brambling and 2 Goldcrest on the Oa. He had also been chasing after a reported Great grey backed shrike, but no joy! This morning, Andy (one of the vols) had carried a goose count at Gruinart, there were 14,178 Barnies, 53 Pale bellied Brent, 53 Whitefronts and 80 Greylags, 41 Whoopers were also present over at Gruinart. This morning I gave Bob and Johno a help doing the count from Bowmore down to Gartbreck with the tally being as follows, 2 Cormorant, 39 Shag, 7 Mute, 38 Whoopers, 675 Barnies, 26 Greylag, 132 Mallard, 40 Teal, 60 Wigeon, 4 Goldeneye, 15 Eider, 10 Red breasted Merganser, 1 Gannet, 86 Oystercatcher, 85 Curlew, 103 Barwits, 18 Redshank, 2 Greenshank, 27 Blackwits, 23 Dunlin, 10 Turnstone, 2 Snipe, 78 Lapwing, 210 Golden Plover, 9 Ringed Plover, 1 Little Gull, 15 GBB Gull, 50 Herring Gull, 22 BH Gull and 50 Common Gull. There were also a further 25 Whoopers flying down Loch Indaal on the Bruichladdich side of the loch, these were counted as not in our count area! At home this morning before setting out to meet in with Bob and Johno, I spotted a Blackbird eating some of the berries off one of the bushes that I recently planted, I suppose that was one of the reasons for planting them anyway...