Thursday 30th July

Yesterday Gary and Sam had 4 Tree Sparrows over at Coullabus at Gruinart. Later on, over at the airport, they had a ringtail Hen Harrier and along at the rocks on Loch Indaal, they counted 30 Sanderling, 100 Eider, 30 Common Gull and an Adult and a juv GBB Gull. Also yesterday, James had 2 Great Skuas take out a Black headed Gull before they in turn were chased off their prey by a GBB Gull on Loch Gruinart. This morning, we saw a ringtail as we headed over to Gruinart. On the guide walk at Gruinart today, Mandy and Heather had seen Sand Martins with young out from the second hide and also had several family groups of Pied Wagtails. We too had Pied Wagtails out on the lawn here at home with the young pestering their parents for food. This afternoon, Clive Mackay had an Osprey fishing on Loch Gruinart opposite Bun an Uillt, possibly the same bird that we saw on Tuesday evening at bird nerds! Clive had seen another Osprey shortly beforehand at the top of Loch Indaal, and was sure that it was 2 different Ospreys. Clive worked with RSPB here on Islay for a good number of years but now lives in Perthshire.