Monday 2nd January 2023

A cold, but beautifully bright, dry and sunny day encouraging further birding and birders to be out in the field – even if it was, for some, mainly to try and catch up with all the rarities that Jonathan had found yesterday!

There was an "invasion of twitchers" in the form of  The Argyll Bird Recorder, Jim Dickson, who came over for the day and caught up with the female Surf Scoter which is still in place at Blackrock and the drake American Wigeon still playing hard to see on Loch Gorm. He also noted a substantial flock of 45+ Reed Buntings at Sunderland Farm. Jonathan still kept us all on our toes, finding a Cackling Goose amongst several thousand Barnies near Loch Skerrols. (camera-grab Photo below). (It's the one towards the middle!).

I went out in the afternoon to do the dutiful (a.k.a. stupid) thing and check a few areas that others might not be looking at to try and get a better coverage of the island. I spent the afternoon sifting through hundreds of ducks from the 2 RSPB hides, but found nothing untoward. A Little Egret and 8 Whooper Swans along with a 20-25 Ravens was the best I could do. The Ravens seem to be homing in on the corpses of the Barnies that are still dying from Avian Flu.

Jonathan Farooqi reports; “We had a slightly more relaxed day today although there was still lots to see. We watched the sunrise at Blackrock where the female Surf Scoter remained and the Long-tailed Ducks were displaying again. There were few ducks at Loch Skerrols but scanning the thousands of Barnacle Geese in a field on the east side produced a nice Richardson’s Cackling Goose. Both Loch Finlaggan and Loch Ballygrant were quite quiet. A couple of Hen Harriers were viewable from the road near Lyrabus late afternoon."

Meanwhile Phil Edwards headed off in different direction too: “Eschewing chasing the rarities on the island, we decided to use the sunniest day of our stay for a trip to Jura.  A pre-dawn start produced a Woodcock at the junction of the B8018/B8017 (as a couple of nights ago) and another further along the B8017 towards Gruinart.  Then a third near Erasaid.(Need to re-christen the B8017 the “Woodcock Highway”)

Lovely day on Jura, the best birds being a Golden Eagle and later two (separate) White-tailed Eagles. A question to those with local knowledge.  On visits 30-40 years ago we used to see more Golden Eagles than last or this year. Have the WTEs out-competed or displaced them?  Any other reason that Goldens appear to have declined? Lots of other birds, the most notable being a Grey Wagtail, five GND, nine Buzzards, two Sparrowhawks, 16 Rock Doves and 10+ Yellowhammers (a rare bird now in Somerset)”

 Phil's photos from today and earlier in his stay below: