Hello all. The calm after the storm brought out the birds. It was Owen and Glynis's last day on Islay, and they managed 65 species in what turned out to be a lovely day, during a whirlwind trip around Lochs Indaal, Gruinart, Skerrols and Gorm. Some of their highlights were a juv golden eagle near Skerrols, 2 GND and 5 Slav grebes on Loch Indaal, 2 chough, 70 ringed plover and some sanderling at Machir Bay and 2 drake gadwall, a blackwit and 2 little egrets at Loch Gruinart. They finished with 96 species for their trip, not counting that putative Pacific diver. Not bad! Thanks very much to them both.
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| pic by Neil McMahon |
Whooper swans were moving through Loch Gruinart all day, and Mike Bell picked up groups of 18, 10, 13, 27, 9 & 18 through the morning, with 12 brent geese also present. At Killinallan he had 2 hen harriers, 45 twite and at least 16 chough. An afternoon count of Loch Indaal from Smelly Corner to Bruichladdich turned up 48 red t diver, 35 great n diver, 39 slavonian grebe, 102 eider, 94 common scoter, 5 long t duck, 3 goldeneye, 77 merganser and 5 black guillemot.
It was the first day of the first barnacle goose count of the winter today, day 2 tomorrow. At Gruinart, 3 WTEs were making a difficult job even trickier, and James also had peregrine and sparrowhawk.
That's all folks, thanks to all.
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