A bright and breezy day for the most part. Little egret and whooper swans at the Gruinart South Hide, and good light for ring-reading, with barnacles ringed in Sligo, Inishkea and Durness amongst the now very well-dispersed and scattered flocks.
Peter continued his stubbornly photo-free Magical Mystery Tour, fearlessly crossing the Laggan to South Islay. He and his group started at The Oa, walking to the American Monument and were rewarded with 3 WTE (1 adult and 2 sub-ad) performing some aerial displays, before they saw 2 golden eagles. Back at the car park, they had fantastic views of 30+ twite all around the bird feeders. In the afternoon they went up to Claggain Bay and saw 6 GND and a male bullfinch. A good day.
Other nice news coming through the grapevine was that one of the two WTE chicks from the first Islay breeding attempt (since they naturally recolonised here) in 2010 has been confirmed as the breeding male at a site in Eastern Scotland. The parents of this bird were both tagged on Mull in 2006, nicely showing how that population has grown and spread over the years. Thanks to all involved for that information.
Finally, I was walking the Sorn at Bridgend recently, wondering when the usual winter kingfisher would turn up. Lo and behold, Malcolm reported that Niall Colthart had a kingfisher today on the Kintour river where it flows into Aros Bay, right down in the SE corner. An unusual sighting for those parts, possibly only the 3rd record.
Mary's back tomorrow (hooray!). Thanks to all the above for their sightings and to all of you for reading.
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