Wednesday 21st November

Yesterday, Mark and Sally Johnson had seen another 4 Whitefronts with collars fitted round at Ballinaby, the details of which I sent to Tony who e mailed me back their details. 2 were fitted at Ballinaby in the winter of 2012/13 at Ballinaby with the other 2 fitted with collars along the road a bit in 2016/17. On Monday, Mark and Sally had seen a Merlin as well as a Peregrine between Coullabus and West Carrabus. and top bird for them yesterday was a White tailed Eagle seen at Bunnahabhain, on their way back to the cottage where they are staying, they had Woodcock fly across the road in front of them along close to Rock Mountain. Alan Leitch along with his wife Emily along with 2 colleagues, fresh from the Scottish Bird ringing conference at the weekend have been over on Islay, for the past 2 days. Gruinart was something else according to Alan with the spectacle of seeing so many Barnies there... Up at Ardnave they had seen the Chough howking about in the fresh dung pats, and also they had a pair of Hen Harriers seen there as well. Today, Alan and his "team" had seen another different Whitefront with a collar fitted around its' neck in a flock of around 2 to 300 Whitefronts down at Sunderland. They also saw a Peregrine nearby, as well as a flock of 200 Rock Doves there as well. Later on, out of Bowmore they had seen 9 Pale belied Brent Geese. James had carried out the second day's count for the International Goose count on the reserve at Gruinart, his figures came to 10,010 Barnies, 340 Whitefronts, 2 Greylags, a Pink footed Goose and also a male Merlin, a Little Egret as well as 3 Hen Harriers noted down. Armin on Monday had seen a ringtail Hen Harrier as he left Machir Bay. Yesterday, he had a Little Egret fly over from the East at Machir Bay and fly on South Easterly.. Today at Gruinart, from the hide, Armin had a Buzzard spoofing all the geese about, finally before he left the hide, a Robin dropped by for a nosey at one of the windows.
Oh, almost forgot, the top bird today was a Great White Egret seen by David Wood down flying around Loch Kinnabus today