Two further days of cold, but fine weather. Today in particular was a wonderful winter's day with bright blue skies, calm conditions and a nip in the air. That hasn't encouraged many folk to get out and go birding, though our local stalwart Mary Redman reported a White-tailed Eagle at Claddach this morning and a male Hen Harrier at Port Wemyss.
David Wood had been busy last week when Jamie Dunning, who is doing a long-term study of Twite came back to Islay for his annual winter attempt to catch and ring some of our birds. David notes that "we colour ringed 67 Twite last week at Kinnabus. These are all metal over colour ring on left leg and 2 colours on the other leg – hopefully more noticeable than the previous 2 letter/number codes. If people could keep an eye out for these around Islay and beyond as time passes that would be great, although most are still hanging around at The Oa at present". So if you see any marked birds, please let David or the Blog know.
David also commented: "We only have a flock of about 80 birds this year (at The Oa) and we ringed virtually all of them. Jamie had a big flock near Machir Bay on the stubbles, so worth keeping an eye out there if you are that way".
There is also a request for help with an upcoming BTO survey of winter gulls. David is in need of help with carrying out the counts. He notes: "They are random samples of coastline which I’m currently trying to get BTO to change to make them a bit more doable and to include the heads of Loch Indaal and Loch Gruinart. If anyone can offer some support for this survey and go out and count a few gulls this winter it would be much appreciated".
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