Wednesday 12th October

Mostly dry, sunny and breezy.

A bit of bird news coming in again from all quarters. Down on The Oa David D. had 3 Brent Geese in Kilnaughton Bay this morning (staying for much of the day and seen by several others including David Livingstone who kindly sent in the great photo) and later saw a female Scaup with 7 Tufted Ducks on Glen Astle loch, 98 Barnies and a Greenfinch in with Linnets and Twite at Kinnabus. (He also reported a Jack Snipe seen on a camera trap there feeding a couple of night ago). Steve & Lynn Rogers were also watching at Kilnaughton where they noted 4 Great Northern Divers.

At this end of Islay I took a twirl around loch Gorm this morning and came across a stubble field just past Kilchoman full of Whooper Swans – 135 in all with about 40 or more young birds included. They were with lots of Greylags and small numbers of Barnies. I wonder how/why they choose one of the many stubble fields over another? On Loch Gorm was a total of 70+ Tufted ducks and a nice drake Pochard with them.

In the afternoon it was good to bump into Bob Davison in the N. Hide at RSPB Gruinart where we were pleased to find 12 Gadwall and 3 Ruff on the floods with a whole range of the usual dabbling ducks, plus a further 12 Whoopers. Out on the flats it was lowish tide and every square metre of sand and mud seemed occupied by a Barnacle Goose – a really fine sight. With them were a couple of large Canada Geese, and a total of 11 Brents. Squeezed in between them was a tight flock of c.500 Golden Plover. Bob had also seen a Little Egret here earlier in the afternoon. James H. made a slightly later visit to Gruinart and upped our count of Black-tailed Godwits to 25.

Richard Belter was belting around the island and sent in this report: “This morning at Kintra out at sea were 5 eider. Flying about were 4 chough, and around the rocks 4 rock pipit. .At Claggain bay 2 tysties, 2 great northern divers and few gannets. At the Oa were twite and linnets by feeders at car park, also golden eagle near farm building. At Blackrock this evening were 23 scoter and 7 scaup.”