James did a Loch Gruinart reserve goose count on Monday and the total was 2923
barnacle geese and 77
whitefronts. Yesterday Carl Reavey had a
willow warbler at Bruichladdich,
greenshank at Gortan,
chiffchaff at Foreland,
great northern diver and
sandwich tern at Port Charlotte. Today another
sedge warbler was heard at Gruinart. Yesterday Mary saw a
short-eared owl on her buggy prowl near Claddach, and this morning 3
Canada geese and she also heard a
willow warbler. Garry did a bit of birdwatching from his garden at Ballygrant and saw/heard 2
fieldfares, 3
willow warblers, 2
chough. He also saw a ring-tail
hen harrier and a
barn owl in Ballygrant Valley.
Today we received an e-mail from Carl Mitchel from WWT who has been studying Islay white-fronted geese in the past few years and he reported that two of the GPS tagged whitefronts left Islay last Sunday at 9pm and headed for Iceland. However strong easterly wind pushed them off the course. Half way between Islay and Iceland they changed the direction and must have been flying directly into the strong wind. They finally landed south-east of Reykjavik. Total crossing time was 48 hours! Migration across open ocean is surely not a fun... See the attached image. Thank you Carl for the information. You can find more info here:
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