Tuesday 3rd November

The entry for yesterdays sightings was written on the second of November on the same day, but I forgot to press the corrcet button to publish it, say no more...

Ed Hutchings sent me through the following e mail this morning... "I managed to get off the island yesterday - two days after the group flew out! Several divers in Kilnaughton Bay yesterday morning - 3 Great Northern, 2 Black-throated and a Red-throated. I also saw a distant Cormorant which appeared to have more yellow on the bill and throat than Great Cormorant. I now see that there’s been an influx of Double-crested Cormorant into Irish waters. Worth checking out."

As ever, many thanks to Ed for sending your sightings through to me to use on the blog, the same applies to Teresa Morris as well. I often read the blog for Fair Isle Bird Observatory and see that there had been excitement up there the other day when a couple of Great Tits and a Blue Tit were seen, so what I often say to visitors here on Islay, "different place, different birds". I remember here that a good number of years ago, we had a Magpie out in the garden, which caused a twitch for us local birders...

Mike Bell had made the most of a "better sort of a day yesterday", not just the weather was better, but at least he did manage a day out, and not get too wet!!!!

He had counted various Whoopers which came to 138 leaving and just around 5pm Mike counted a further 27 arriving up at Gruinart... Over at Glenegedale, he had a Peregrine with a Merlin and also a Golden Eagle seen on the RSPB reserve on the Oa. Also there, he counted 350 Twite at Upper Killeyan and a count of a further 70 were seen at Kinnabus. Down at Kilnaugton Bay, he saw 2 RTD, 6 GND, 25 Redwing, a Mistle Thrush and also 3 Chough present there. Down on the croft walk, he counted 9 Redwing  and 8 Fieldfare and also a Hen Harrier. Mid afternoon, he had seen the Todd's Canada Goose amongst the Barnies seen down at the merse at Bridgend. Finally up at Gruiart, he had counted 430 Greenland Whitefronts which all appeared to be resting up, looking like that they had just arrived and looking tired out.

I forgot to mention last night, that I had a Merlin down at the roadend leading up to Rockside. This morning, out in the garden we had 10 Redwing in hopping around, a couple of Mistle Thrushes as well as around 6 "new arrivals" Blackbirds were present here as well.