Thursday 19th January

Gary sent me through some sightings seen earlier this week, but unfortunately his email went into my spam box, and I did not see it until earlier this evening!!! On Tuesday, Gary had 2 Kestrel on the wing, both hunting, a flypast by 11 Lapwing and also a male Hen Harrier out quartering, all seen around Finlaggan. While out on the International goose counts this week James had been out on the Gruinart/ Ardnave route, and had seen a Golden Eagle, a Water Rail and a Peregrine on his travels. Over on Nave Island, he had counted 281 Grey Seal with a small flock of 37 Twite noted at Ardnave. Mandy had seen the leucistic Barnacle goose fly past at Daill, behind Kilmeny Church, amongst some whitefronts, 2 Pinkies were present, and at Eorrabus, the small Canada was seen with the flock of Barnies there. Finally, she had 9 Whitefronts fitted with collars together at Newton. After some detective work, I found out that these geese had been rung in November 2015  in the sugar beet field at Octovullin, thanks to Ed Burrell for the info, Tony Fox was out of office... Back on Tuesday, Phill Catton and the "vols" had been working on the boardwalk on the Oa, when a juv White tailed Eagle flew over, about 40 feet above them...  Today down past Uiskentuie, there were 16 Pale bellied Brent along the top of Loch Indaal, probably the same geese that we saw yesterday at Blackrock when 16 were also present. Out on the machir yesterday, we had 70 Whitefronts and 10 Greylag Geese in the rushes. Today, there were only 39 Whitefronts noted. We had a small flock of 6 Yellowhammer along at Sunderland early this afternoon.