A lovely sunny spring day with a warm breeze from the east.
George Jackson emailed in with some sightings for Wednesday. His wife, Pat was up near Loch Allan, Dunlossit in the evening and heard the distinct ‘yaffling’ call of a Green Woodpecker that then gave a short, but clear view as it flew towards woodland NW of the loch. There are just 6 previous records, the last in 2010. George also notes ca.12 Shelducks on a recently cultivated field N of road, S of Ballygrant and ca. 25 Red-breasted Mergansers at Blackrock.
Bird news for today includes a Sedge Warbler at Kinnabus for David D. who later found an Osprey fishing at Laggan Bridge. Ed Burrell had a Whooper Swan at Loch Cornabus and Mary Redman enjoyed a "lovely chorus" of Whimbrel and Common Sandpipers at Currie Sands.
Other interesting bird news came in via Clive McKay and Steve Percival about some of our Barnacle Geese that have been radio-tagged. An Icelandic research group have plotted a number of Barnies returning to Iceland and have a website showing on a map some of their journeys. Most look like they take a good straight line directly NW, but one seemed to have misjudged, went past Iceland, circled about in the N. Atlantic, returned all the way back to Orkney and rested for 8 days before heading off again. At the other end of the scale, one Barnacle Goose made the crossing of some 900 km [560 mi] from the UK to Iceland in just seven hours - a heck of a speed, presumably with a good wind blowing up its backside to help it along!
You can look in more detail here:
https://arcgis.stofa.is/portal/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4a3683fc60404389bd814e303c21ebc4&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2owThe44rIKwI9Oa3aPfzdJvjs3QiQj9Uwn9H0MICthWNDr2Y2jnGdk_4_aem_Ac23Qn5PMmHJtobjJh_PDGw3zjFArCGlIH3fK7JukgeLNkfBMR6pycOrWKPqgR2mGB5YiDNVaZgfHOqef3Mi_DvR
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