Dry, mostly sunny, quite warm and continuing southerly / easterly light winds.
Jim Dickson’s final full day on Islay produced
further good sightings: 2 White-tailed Eagles and a Little Egret on Loch Indaal near Bridgend in
the morning (also seen by Gary T. a couple of hours later) and a single
Barnacle Goose at the top of Loch Gruinart – presumably the
lone bird that has been popping up occasionally all summer? Further
searching on Gruinart in the morning produced 10 Curlew Sandpipers, 4
Greenshank, a Grey Plover and another White-tailed Eagle at a similar time to
another eagle being watched at Ballygrant by Gary. Back at Gruinart this
afternoon, I joined Jim to watch the waders as the tide rose. There were masses
of Curlews, Dunlin, Br-tailed Godwits and Oystercatchers and hidden away within
the flocks a couple of Curlew Sandpipers, 2 Little Stint and 2 Black-tailed Godwits.
Out on the flats were 45 Wigeon and 6 Pintail. 2 Peregrines (one young bird and
an adult) were causing mayhem, but catching nothing. Around the edges of the
saltmarsh alba Wagtails were still much in evidence, with about 30 counted at
the head of the loch.
(Yesterday there was a complete island count of
Greylag Geese which produced a very high total of over 3,200 – plenty for the
Eagles to eat this winter!)
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