Friday 12th October

Well, the weather certainly has been wild with the ferries all cancelled until mid afternoon, at least they did come... all we need now is for the main roads on the mainland to be sorted out which are prone to land slips around the "Rest and be Thankful" section of the A83....
Back to the main thrust of the blog, the birds seen on Islay . This morning, Mike Peacock had spent an hour doing some sea watching from Port Charlotte out on to Loch Indaal. Mike had seen a lot of Common Gulls, Black headed Gulls and Herring Gulls. Also sen in the mix, a definite top bird, an adult Iceland Gull, good one Mike....
 The Horwich birders had been out and about today, at Loch Skerrols where they counted 35 Whoopers with 2 young, 16 Mutes with 4 young as well as  62 Wigeon. The River Sorn was in spate with all the recent rain, but at The Woollen Mill, they had seen a pair of Siskin, 3 Long tailed Tits and a Goldcrest. Yesterday, on the garden fence of the cottage they have been staying this week, they had seen 3 male and a female Stonechat while over the moorland a female Hen Harrier floated past.
James today, managed to carry out the WeBS count on the floods at Gruinart, it was too windy to do the count out on the Loch!!! His tally for the birds seen was as follows...505  Golden Plover, 4 Snipe, 73 Mallard, 2 Heron, 11 Gadwall, 30 Shoveler, 349 Wigeon, 5 Mute Swan, 14 Whoopers, 1,350 Teal, 24 Pintail, 5 Curlew, 12 Blackwit and 185 Lapwing. James also had 12 Redwing while he was out as well.