Saturday 18th December

Another decent dry day, with very little wind. At the heads of Loch Indaal and Loch Gruinart big groups of barnacle geese spent much of the day sleeping off a heavy night of full-moonlit grazing. A single lonely looking whooper swan briefly flew north before settling back on to the floods at Loch Gruinart. A few (10 or so) pale-bellied brents dotted the shoreline between Carnain and Blackrock, with a group of 15 sanderling running around between the oystercatchers. Around 250 golden plover passed overhead at Crosshouses, heading toward Bowmore. Probably doing their christmas shopping, like the rest of us.

Here's the last of Ken Reeves's photos from his recent trip to Islay - the American wigeon he and his group saw at ICCI in early December. Thanks Ken.