Friday 25 November 2016

Friday 25th November

Yesterday morning, Ciaran and Bex had been up at Bunnahabhain Distillery. Their morning started well with spotting 2 Otters out in the bay, well almost actually only 1 as the other Otter was almost nobbled by a White tailed Eagle!!! Birds seen at Bunnahabhain included 23 Wigeon, 5 R b Merganser, 9 GND, 5 RTD, 4 Slavonian Grebe, 2 Tystie, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Peregrine, 1 Mistle Thrush, 12 Twite and also 2 Redpoll. Down on Loch Indaal, out from Whin Park, they saw 29 Pale bellied Brent, 38 Scaup, 14 Long tailed Duck, 1 Common Scoter, 14 Shelduck, 18 GND, 4 RTD, 19 Slav Grebe, 72 Barwit, 133 Curlew, 82 Dunlin, 12 Ringed Plover, back on the land they counted 12 Red legged Partridge. Yesterday as well, Gary from Islay Wild Birding had been over on Jura where he saw a Golden Eagle, a White tailed Eagle, a Turnstone, a Ringed Plover, at least 20 Cormorant and Shag and also 28 GND. This morning, James had seen 7 Woodcock, 4 Goldcrest, a Sparrowhawk and a Chiffchaff as he walked through the woodland trail at Gruinart.
Andrew Kent from SNH sent me through the tally for the International Goose count carried out last week... the tally came to 52,363 Barnies, 4,777 Whitefronts and 1,067 Greylag Geese.  Many thanks to Andrew and the team from SNH for theses figures.
Before I forget, on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm, the Islay bird nerds will be holding their monthly meeting in the Lochside in Bowmore, the last meeting for 2016 I hasten to add!!! So if you are around, feel free to come along.

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