Wednesday 24th May

 A dry day of mostly grey skies and light westerly winds.

The Glasgow group sent in their report from their day's birding yesterday:

"We had a driving day hoping for short eared owls, covering the back road from Bridgend to Ballygrant to begin with. No owls but Red-legged Partridge seen. We then drove to the end of the road at Bunnahabhain and got Great Northern Diver, Common Sandpipers and Black Guillemot. At Bridgend were Arctic Terns and Bar tailed Godwit amongst the usual waders. We then drove round the Rhinns of Islay. Plenty of thrushes, chats and Hooded Crows, but no owls. We heard a single Corncrake just outside Portnahaven at about 4pm. We then headed back to Bowmore but were very surprised to see a pair of Velvet Scoter on Ellister Loch outside Portnahaven. A fabulous day and a fantastic trip".

That was yesterday. Today I stopped at the roadside loch at Easter Ellister and checked out the scoters reported yesterday. The pair were there, and as expected, the drake Velvet is in fact still paired with a female Common Scoter as it has been for many years past. A very easy and understandable mistake to make on the part of yesterday’s observers to assume that if you see a lone male and female scoter together that they are of the same species without looking too closely at the duller female. According to the records, this “odd couple” have been appearing on the same loch at times in summer since 2016. It is suggested that they may be the last vestiges of a wildfowl collection at Ellister going back many years before. It begs several questions: how old are these birds, as the wildfowl collection fizzled out ages ago? Where do they disappear to when not at Ellister (they aren’t seen there too often and then mainly/only in summer). Why are they paired – just a couple of old lost souls?

After a tip-off from Jim Dickson that the weather today might produce a bit of skua passage off Frenchman’s Rocks, I dutifully/gullibly went to check it out. It was pleasant enough – a mix of relaxed contemplation as I stared out to sea for one and a half hours combined with a frisson of expectation that at any moment “something amazing” might come into view. It never did! There was a steady passage eastwards (towards nesting cliffs on Rathlin?) of Guillemots with a few Razorbills accompanying them – probably over 1,000 in the time I was there. A steady trickle of Manx Shearwaters and Kittiwakes (50 – 100 of each) kept me awake and alert as did the 4-5 local Black Guillemots - but only 3 Fulmars passing by. Gannets were fairly numerous - heading to Ailsa Craig I imagine - but off the rocks themselves, in quite a rough sea there were always 15 – 20 Gannets swirling around, but never diving for fish.  With no skua migration to distract me I watched individual Gannets going around the rocks multiple times and wondered what they got out of it? Maybe seeing several seals in the turbulent water below gave them the notion that there were fish to be had?

The most exciting moment of my vigil, tucked into the rocks with my scope, was a lovely Otter that walked right past me just 10 feet away on its way down the rocks to the sea.

Elsewhere on the island, Ed Burrell reports a couple of drake Wigeon at Cornabus – another odd location/timing for this species. Still on The Oa, David Dinsley had a Blackcap singing at Kinnabus.