Wednesday 12th February

Gary and Wendy have been in touch with their list of birds seen. "It has been extremely rough down  at Carnain over the last two days, but yesterday they had all the Indaal Barnies feeding on the grass next to their cottage for most of the day which was fantastic and at least they were not annoying the local farmers !!  Sightings from Wednesday: Carnain; Little Egret on the pond by cottage, White tailed Eagle flying over them, followed and  being mobbed by a dozen Barnies which they have never seen before, Barnies, Oystercatcher, Greylag, Blackbird, Starling, Jackdaw, Mallard, Mute Swan, Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Robin, Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Pied Wagtail, Curlew, Shelduck, Rock Pipit and Raven."

Up here at home, a different sort of a day, with the wind being a lot calmer, no need to walk at an odd angle, leaning into the wind.. mid you the temperature was not that warm... Late afternoon, I saw a Raven flying in to its' nest up the gullie from here carrying some nesting material , a branch which I reckon was about 2 feet long. It certainly would not have managed to fly with it the other day in the wind!! There was also Buzzard sitting on the top of the crag watching the Raven as well as me ... I counted a group of 42 Jackdaws having a right good howk  (or digging) down in the field below the crag, a Hare was also seen hopping around in amongst the "game crop" and also 3 cock and 7 hen Pheasants were seen along in the field beside the Hare.

Before I forget, the group from Norfolk birding, led by Chris Mills had a total of 110 birds seen when they were over last week, a not bad figure considering the weather and that they left on the Thursday rather than being here another couple of days, but they went back to the mainland early rather than waiting to possibly discover that the ferry might be cancelled. As ever,  many thanks for your birds folks...