Saturday 24th February

A dry, sunny but chilly day.

Jonathan Farooqi reported plenty of activity off Bowmore in loch Indaal this morning, with 20 Slav. Grebes, 20 Red-throated Divers, 15 Great Northern Divers, 1 Black-throated Diver, 25 Long-tailed Ducks, 100 Common Scoters, 100 Eider, 30 Red-breasted Mergansers and a single Scaup. (The Slav. Grebe and L T Duck numbers are quite high counts). 

Jonathan also found the Red-breasted Goose, 2 White-tailed Eagles and 5 Greenshank at Gruinart Flats, a Golden and White-tailed Eagle over the Ballygrant end of the Glen Road, 2 more White-tailed Eagles at Finlaggan and a Dipper at the Woollen Mill.

Louise Muir was on Islay seeing additional White-tailed Eagles at Kilmeny (a young bird) and Gearach (an adult) - so a possible tally today of 5-8 birds?. 

Margaret Brooke is back at Kilchoman where a Hen Harrier flew across her garden.

There was a bit of belated, but very welcome and interesting bird news from Jim Duncan and John Graham who had been on the island recently. They had taken a photo of a collared Greenland White-front that Ed Burrell confirms as a bird caught on Greenland in July 2008 that has been wintering on Islay every year since - a good age for a goose!

John and Jim also sent in a series of excellent photos of a couple of happily boxing Hares, followed by an attempted catch of the two Hares by a Golden Eagle, with an end result photo of a forlorn eagle and two lucky lagomorphs!

Great action photos - many thanks for sending them in - and thanks to everyone for their records which all go to the Argyll Bird Club database and help fill in an overall picture of  what and how many birds are here.