Wednesday 25th March

A not bad day here today with the weather, it has been dry which allows us all to get on with some outside work, the farmers are busy ploughing their fields. Yesterday, the Horwich birders had gone over to Jura for the day, in the Achamore area they saw a Merlin, approaching Inver Bridge they had a ring tailed Hen Harrier with another further on over Lowlandman's Bay as well as a Sparrowhawk there as well. On Loch Tarbet itself, there were 19 Whoopers resting up on the shoreline. Coming back down to the ferry, they had 4 GND in Small Isles Bay. Back on Islay, on a rather choppy Loch Skerrols, 7 Tufted Duck, 1 Goldeneye and 2 Mute Swans were present. Wally and Jude had 14 Whoopers battling their way up the Sound of Islay against a strong headwind at Port Askaig where there were also 14 Black Guillemots present. I got the figures through from last weeks'International Goose Count with the tally being 36,989 Barnies, 3,995 Greenland Whitefronts and 431 Greylags, thanks to Tracey and the team from SNH for these figures. Last night was the "early" meeting of the bird nerds, and we were all pleased with the turnout, 22 fol. Mainly visiting birders, it was a great chance to meet informally with them, for most of whom it was their first visit and certainly not their last, some of whom no doubt we will meet up at the Bird Fair come August down at Rutland.